PRINCIPLES OF TAXATION. 65 



tion, even to a most obtuse intellect, that there is no one act which 

 can be performed by a community that brings in so large a return 

 to the credit of civilization and general happiness as the judicious 

 expenditure for public purposes of a fair percentage of the general 

 wealth collected under an equitable system of taxation. 



Now, an income tax is the very essence of personal taxation, and 

 although in respect to a specialty of application it has been decided 

 by the Supreme Court of the United States not to be a direct tax, it 

 comes to the ordinary taxpayer most directly; and this is the first or 

 one of the most influential reasons why human nature, as ordinarily 

 constituted, does not like it. The world's experience is to the same 

 effect in respect to a " poll " or " head " tax. This in a popular sense 

 is almost universally regarded as a direct tax, and altogether personal 

 in its incidence. It has accordingly always been most unpopular. 

 Its collection has been the occasion of great civil disturbances in the 

 world's history, and it has been denied a place by popular vote or 

 constitutional provision, in the tax system of most of the States of 

 the Federal Union. 



A second and more important reason why a general income tax 

 powerfully antagonizes popular sentiment is that its efficient admin- 

 istration, or revenue productiveness, requires that every person liable 

 to taxation in respect to his annual net gains, profits, or income shall 

 make to a Government official an exhibit of the financial condition 

 of his estate, business, or profession; for, in default of such an 

 exhibit, any basis for assessment must be a mere matter of conjecture 

 on the part of the assessor, with a result devoid of any pretense to 

 correctness or equality. But such an exhibit, necessarily disclosing 

 to a greater or less degree his financial condition to his business com- 

 petitors, and to a curious, gossiping public, no man will willingly 

 make; and he naturally regards it as in the nature of an outrage on 

 the part of the government that seeks to compel him to do it. Hence 

 the successful administration of an income tax involves and requires 

 the use of arbitrary and inquisitorial methods and agencies, which, 

 perfectly consistent with a despotism, are entirely antagonistic to and 

 incompatible with the principles and maintenance of a free govern- 

 ment. 



Practically, as John Stuart Mill has expressed it, " the fairness 

 which belongs to the principle of an income tax can not be made to 

 attach to it in practice " ; and, " while appparently the most just 

 of all modes of taxation, it is in effect more unjust than many others 

 that are prima facie more objectionable." And again he says, " The 

 tax, on whatever principles of equality it may be imposed, is in prac- 

 tice unequal in one of the worst ways, falling heaviest on the most 

 conscientious," and "should be reserved as an extraordinary resource 



VOL. LIII. — 6 



