land, though it does not seem probable that the systems adopted for its enforcement will ever be found satisfactory to the people of other countries. Thus, in the taxation of incomes, the average rate does not generally exceed four or five per cent, but in some cantons the rates rule as high as seven and even ten per cent. By a comparatively recent law established in the canton of Vaud, which in point of population and wealth ranks third in the Swiss confederation, progressive taxation has been established, and the property of the canton is divided into three classes which are taxed in the following proportions: One per cent 1,000 for estates under $5,000 capital value; 1
12
per cent 1,000 between $5,000 and $20,000, and 2 per cent 1,000 for estates exceeding $20,000 in value. Personal property is divided into seven classes, the lowest class being under $5,000, the highest exceeding $160,000 capital value. The rates of taxation on these classes are to be in the proportion of 1, 1
12
, 2, 2
12
, 3, 3
12
, and 4 per cent 1,000. Incomes from earnings are also divided into seven classes, but in arriving at the net amount to be taxed, a deduction of $80 is allowed for each person legally dependent on the head of the family for his support. The result of this is that while a bachelor earning $1,000 a year would pay a tax of $15, a married man with the same income and ten children would pay but fifty cents, and if he had twelve children nothing. The Vaudois law was carried by overwhelming majorities when submitted, as was necessary, to a "referendum" vote of the whole people, and at every subsequent stage of its progress.
The only one of the great governments of the world at the present time which can prefer a claim to a large measure of success in administering an income tax is that of Germany, and especially that of the kingdom of Prussia; and the methods by which such success has been attained, and which seem to be based on the precedents established by the old Romans so far as the changed conditions of civilization will permit, ought to be most instructive to those who think this tax can be administered and made notably productive of revenue in the United States. The tax in Germany is levied, as it were, in duplicate, or under two forms: first, by towns and cities, and termed "communal"; and, second, by the state, under the designation of "class" tax. An entire exemption from these taxes is granted only to the very poorest and humblest of the population.
"Petty hucksters with a small stock of potatoes, second-hand clothes peddlers, servant girls earning four dollars and twenty-five cents a quarter, pay the communal tax, and are also inscribed in the first (or lowest) grade of the class tax."[1]
- ↑ United States Consular Reports, Nos. 99, 100, p. 461.
