Theory of Fees. 
57 
that the service should be furnished for exactly what it costs,, 
that is, that each individual pay for the special benefit he re¬ 
ceives, and no more, as in the case of our Post Office. The pay¬ 
ment then is a fee. The same public welfare may demand that 
the government derive as much revenue from an enterprise as 
possible. As an example may be mentioned the tobacco monop¬ 
oly in France, where the special tax is as easily justified as the 
sale of two cent postage stamps by our own government. We 
can therefore find all kinds of charges; from the pure taxes of 
monopoly, to the free goods furnished to the individual at state 
expense. 
C. LICENSE FEES. 
Fees are not only paid for benefit actually received, but are 
often paid in anticipation of a benefit which is expected in the 
future. The latter is generally in the nature of a privilege. 
As Professor Seligman puts it: 1 “The particular thing done 
by the government in return for a fee may be either the dis¬ 
play of some positive energy, as in furnishing a water-supply, 
or it may be simply permission to do some thing. The govern¬ 
ment may create direct utilities, or it may permit the individ¬ 
ual to create utilities; but in each case it demands a return for 
the privilege. ” 
Fees are therefore not limited to charges which are fixed by 
the government according to the cost or expense involved, but 
they include a number of payments in which the cost is of minor 
or no importance. Such charges are popularly known as licen¬ 
ses, or license-fees. It is obvious that these cannot be measured 
by the cost to the state, because the privileges, immunities, or 
exemptions granted, cost, as a rule, almost nothing. The rea¬ 
son why cost cannot be made a standard of measurement in 
these cases, is because cost here does not correspond to the 
special benefit to the individual. The costs often amount only 
to the expense of making out the written instrument and con¬ 
veying the license; and this fact is often recognized by charging 
an extra fee for it and another fee for the license proper. In 
1 Essays in Taxation, p. 278. 
