So much for the tariff system of Mexico. The "excise" or "internal revenue" system of the country is no less extraordinary. It is essentially a tax on sales, collected in great part through the agency of stamps—a repetition of the old "alcavala" tax of Spain,[1] which Adam Smith, in his "Wealth of Nations," describes as one of the worst forms of taxation that could be inflicted upon a country, and as largely responsible for the decay of Spanish manufactures and agriculture. Thus the Mexican law, re-enacted January, 1885, imposes a tax of "one half of one per cent upon the value in excess of $20 of transactions of buying or selling of every kind of merchandise, whether at wholesale or retail, in whatever place throughout the whole republic." Also, one half of one per cent "on all sales and resales of country or city property; upon all exchanges of movable or immovable property; on mortgages, transfers, or gifts, collateral or bequeathed inheritances; on
- ↑ The very name is yet essentially kept up in Mexico, where the tax is sometimes designated as the "alcabala."
of the special legislation of the Spanish crown for the Indies, the edicts, decrees, and enactments of conquerors, viceroys, bishops, juntas, councils, emperors, military chiefs, dictators, presidents, and congresses, the acts of one hundred and thirty-six governments, many of them initiated and perishing amid violent domestic revolutions, and the storms of civil and foreign wars, it is not surprising that Mexican law is embarrassed with antiquated forms and anomalies, confusion, contradictions, and uncertainties."—Consul Strother, "Report to the United States Department of State, 1884."
