PRINCIPLES OF TAXATION. 373 



One curious feature of Federal experience with this tax, the 

 tolerance of which would now be regarded as incompatible with any- 

 just and efficient administration of it, was, that the returns made 

 under it were thrown open to the public; and one commissioner of 

 internal revenue instructed his officials to have them published in 

 the pages of local papers, " in order," as he said, " that the amplest 

 opportunity may be given for the detection of any fraudulent returns 

 that may have been made." This idea did not, however, find much 

 favor with the public, who, in fact, during the later years of the tax, 

 were inclined to regard with great equanimity all successful attempts 

 to evade it. 



The income tax ceased to form a part of the internal revenue 

 system of the United States after the year 1872. It wa-s, however, 

 made a part of the tax system of several of the States, and the fol- 

 lowing record (hitherto generally overlooked by the public) of the 

 recent administrative experience of one State ought to be especially 

 worthy of the attention of those who advocate the readoption of this 

 f oiTu of taxation by the Federal Government. 



No State in the Union has a more illiberal, all-pervading system 

 of taxation than Massachusetts, and in no State is the administra- 

 tion of tax laws more stringent or arbitrary. What Massachusetts 

 fails to accomplish in the assessment and collection of taxes would, 

 therefore, seem to be of little use for any of the other States or the 

 Federal Government to attempt with any anticipation of success. 

 This Massachusetts system finds its fittest exemplification in the city 

 of Boston; and the officials who constitute its department of mu- 

 nicipal taxation never indulge, as the taxpayers well know, in much 

 sentiment in the discharge of their duties. The acknowledged rep- 

 resentative of this board for many years never hesitated to say that 

 he recognized but one principle, and that was, that in matters of 

 taxation the taxpayer had no rights which the State was bound to 

 respect; and, as chairman of a State commission which some years 

 ago made a report to the Legislature, and with the Declaration of 

 Independence confronting him with its assertion that it is a self- 

 evident truth that " all men are endowed by their Creator with cer- 

 tain inalienable rights," he also gravely asserted that " the individual 

 person [in Massachusetts] has no inalienable rights excej^t that to his 

 own righteousness." 



One of the specialties of municipal taxation in Boston, under 

 the supervision of its Board of Assessors, is an income tax, and its 

 methods of administration are substantially as follows: Taxpayers 

 are required to make a return annually, and in detail, of all their 

 property which the law makes subject to taxation (and that embraces 

 almost everything in Massachusetts except their proprietary interests 



