2. The Poll-moneys which have been leavied of late have been wonderfully confused; as taxing some rich single persons at the lowest rate; some Knights, though wanting necessaries, at twenty pounds, encouraging some vain fellows to pay as Esquires, on purpose to have themselves written Esquires in the Receipts; making some pay ten pounds as Doctours of Physick or Law, who get nothing by the Faculty, nor minde the practice; making some poor Tradesmen forced to be of the Liveries of their Companies to pay beyond their strength; and lastly, some to pay according to their Estates, the same to be valued by those that know them not; thereby also giving opportunity to some Bankrupts to make the world credit them as men of such Estates, at which the Assessors did rate them by Collusion.[1]
3. So as by this Confusion, Arbitraries, Irregularities, and hotch-pot of Qualifications, no estimate could be made of the fitness of this Plaister to the Sore, nor no Checque or way to examine whether the respective Receipts were duly accompted for, &c.
4. Wherefore wholly rejecting the said complicated way of Tax, I shall speak of Poll-money more distinctly, and first of the simple Poll-money upon every head of all mankinde alike; the Parish paying for those that receive alms. Parents for their Children under age, and Masters for their Apprentices, and others who receive no wages.
5. The evil of this way is, that it is very unequal; men of unequal abilities, all paying alike, and those who have greatest charges of Children paying most; that is, that by how much the poorer they are, by so much the harder are they taxed.
- ↑ A poll tax according to a complicated scale such as Petty complains of was imposed by 12 Charles II., c. 9, in September, 1660. It was payable within twelve days and was expected to produce £ 400,000 for the speedy disbanding of the army. By the 24th November it had produced but £ 252,167. 1s. 4d., H. C. Jour., viii. 196. Two supplementary bills for remedying the defects of the tax were introduced in the same year, but they appear to have failed of passage on account of the dissolution of Parliament, 29 December. The Parliamentary career of these bills was complicated. See H. C. Jour., viii. 38 to 234 passim, and, for an instance of evasion, Pepys' Diary, 10 December, 1660, vol. i., p. 283.
