PRINCIPLES OF TAXATION. 



5^ 



It is not easy to frame such an one, in clear and succinct lan- 

 guage, covering all the essential conditions. It probably never 

 has been done, and therefore the best thing to do is not to spend 

 time and effort in attempting it, but rather to endeavor to illus- 

 trate and point out its meaning indirectly. And, with this pur- 

 pose in view, it is important to recognize at the outset an exact 

 and homely truth, and one which heretofore has been gener- 

 ally overlooked by writers on taxation and political economy, 

 namely : 



That a government never has any money — by which alone the 

 expenses of the state can be defrayed — except what the people- 

 citizens or subjects — give, or concede to it by voluntary or invol- 

 untary action ; and that the people, as a whole and in turn, never 

 have any to give except what comes to them as the result of their 

 work, or from an exchange of the products of their work. And 

 such being the case, it follows, as has been happily pointed out by 

 Mr. Atkinson, that what the Government really wants of its peo- 

 ple, when it calls upon them for taxes, is work, and that the meth- 

 ods of taxation are only methods for collecting and using the 

 products of work.* Hence the following definition of a tax, de- 

 duced from the above statement of fact by Mr. Atkinson — that 

 " it is that certain portion of the product of a country which must 

 he devoted to the support of the Oovernment " — embodies a meaning 

 and a truth not incorporated and set forth in the ordinary or pop- 

 ular definitions. At the same time it is deficient in not recogniz- 

 ing any distinction between a just and uniform taking and an ex- 

 action or confiscation. 



Taxation in the United States, its Aggeegate and Dis- 

 tribution. — During the year 1890 the aggregate revenue receipts 

 of the several governments of the United States, derived mainly 

 from taxation, as reported by the census of that year,f were 

 $1,039,482,013, apportioned as follows : Federal taxation, $461,184,- 

 080 ; State taxation, $578,328,333. The last aggregate was again 

 subdivided into $116,157,040 for State purposes, including the Ter- 

 ritories and District of Columbia, $133,525,493 for county pur- 



* " Taxation means work, of the head, of the hand, or of the machine, or all combined. 

 And the method of taxation is only a method of distributing the products of work. It is 

 measured, when in the process of distribution, in terms of money, but the money itself stands 

 for work, or is derived from work. And the work of the Government is as much a part of 

 the work of the community as any other. All who work, from the head of the nation down 

 to the lowest municipal official, must be supplied with shelter, food, and clothing ; and those 

 who pay the taxes do the work that is necessary to furnish this supply." — The IndustriaJ 

 Progress of the Nation^ Edward Atkinson; Putnam, New York, 1890. Taxation and 

 Work, same author. 



f The census of 1890 presented for the first time even an approximation of the annual 

 incomes of the several governments of the United States, and the amount and objects for 

 which they were expended. 



