472 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



profits were greatly impaired. The income from the Federal 

 domains amounts to about five tenths per cent of the total reve- 

 nue. The largest item of expense to the Confederation is the 

 army, which requires nearly forty per cent of its entire revenue. 

 "Although carrying on no wars of its own nor joining in the 

 conquests of other countries, Switzerland is compelled to undergo 

 this great expense in order to preserve her neutrality and the in- 

 tegrity of her borders." 



The comparatively recent tax experience of the twenty-two 

 Cantons of Switzerland has been very peculiar, and different in 

 many respects from that of any other country — a result that 

 might naturally have been expected from their respective gov- 

 ernmental independence, jealousy of other cantons, internal an- 

 tagonisms consequent on the division of each canton into sub- 

 governing communes, and in the radical differences in respect 

 both to language and religion. 



The taxation of property in general (or the so-called general 

 property tax) has been thoroughly tried in Switzerland and, al- 

 though substantially abandoned in all other European countries, 

 is still adhered to, and constitutes an important feature in the 

 fiscal system of all the Swiss Cantons. In the case of realty the 

 tax is levied on the capital, and not upon the annual value of the 

 estate. In the case of personal property everything is taxed, 

 whether it yields an income or not — furniture, pictures, jewelry, 

 carriages, etc. ; but furniture and trade appliances up to the value 

 of $1,000 are exempted. 



With a view to the successful enforcement of this kind of 

 taxation almost every conceivable method has been devised and 

 adopted, such as self-assessment in the form of compulsory re- 

 turns on the part of the individual; assessments by officials on 

 assumed data, oaths and no oaths, publicity and secrecy ; and all 

 of these, as has been the experience of the United States in the 

 same line of policy, have been confessedly ineffective. One insti- 

 tution, however, has been developed in recent years that is pecul- 

 iar to Switzerland, and that is the so-called inventory method 

 (inventarization). " As soon as a taxpayer dies his entire prop- 

 erty is at once seized by the Government and held until an exact 

 inventory is made of it. If this discloses fraud in the previous 

 self-assessments, punitive taxes must be paid, ranging in some 

 cantons over a period of ten years." That such a method of tax 

 administration has and will prove effective in increasing tax re- 

 ceipts can not be doubted, but its objectionable features are no 

 less evident. Thus it intrudes upon the privacy of families, for 

 the purpose of fixing seals upon their property, at a most inop- 

 portune moment, and seeks evidence of the violation of law, " as 

 it were, in the very chamber of death." It also offers a bounty 



