Principles Of Political Economy
- Автор: Mill John Stuart
- Год: 2022
- Язык: английский
- Год: Strelbytskyy Multimedia Publishing
- Жанр: Политика
Электронная книга - «Principles Of Political Economy». Краткое содержание книги:
Beside discussing descriptive issues such as which nations tended to benefit more in a system of trade based on comparative advantage (Mill's answer: those with more elastic demands for other countries' goods), the work also discussed normative issues such as ideal systems of political economy, critiquing proposed systems such as communism and socialism.
Along with A System of Logic, Principles of Political Economy established Mill's reputation as a leading public intellectual. Mill's sympathetic attitude in this work and in other essays toward contemporary socialism, particularly Fourierism, earned him esteem from the working class as one of their intellectual champions.
With reference to such a tax, perhaps a safer criterion than either a rise of rents or a rise of the price of corn, would be a general rise in the price of land. It would be easy to keep the tax within the amount which would reduce the market value of land below the original valuation; and up to that point, whatever the amount of the tax might be, no injustice would be done to the proprietors.
In 1870 Mr. Mill became President of the Land Tenure Association, one of whose objects was: “To claim for the benefit of the State the Interception by Taxation of the Future Unearned Increase of the Rent of Land (so far as the same can be ascertained), or a great part of that increase, which is continually taking place, without any effort or outlay by the proprietors, merely through the growth of population and wealth; reserving to owners the option of relinquishing their property to the state at the market value which it may have acquired at the time when this principle may be adopted by the Legislature.” It is urged against this plan that, if the Government take for itself the increase from rent, it should also make compensation for loss arising from declining rents, whenever there happens to be any readjustment of values in land.[340]
§ 6. Taxes falling on Capital not necessarily objectionable.
In addition to the preceding rules, another general rule of taxation is sometimes laid down—namely, that it should fall on income and not on capital.
To provide that taxation shall fall entirely on income, and not at all on capital, is beyond the power of any system of fiscal arrangements. There is no tax which is not partly paid from what would otherwise have been saved; no tax, the amount of which, if remitted, would be wholly employed in increased expenditure, and no part whatever laid by as an addition to capital. All taxes, therefore, are in some sense partly paid out of capital; and in a poor country it is impossible to impose any tax which will not impede the increase of the national wealth. But, in a country where capital abounds and the spirit of accumulation is strong, this effect of taxation is scarcely felt. To take from capital by taxation what emigration would remove, or a commercial crisis destroy, is only to do what either of those causes would have done—namely, to make a clear space for further saving.
I can not, therefore, attach any importance, in a wealthy country, to the objection made against taxes on legacies and inheritances, that they are taxes on capital. It is perfectly true that they are so. As Ricardo observes, if £100 are taken from any one in a tax on houses or on wine, he will probably save it, or a part of it, by living in a cheaper house, consuming less wine, or retrenching from some other of his expenses; but, if the same sum be taken from him because he has received a legacy of £1,000, he considers the legacy as only £900, and feels no more inducement than at any other time (probably feels rather less inducement) to economize in his expenditure. The tax, therefore, is wholly paid out of capital; and there are countries in which this would be a serious objection. But, in the first place, the argument can not apply to any country which has a national debt and devotes any portion of revenue to paying it off, since the produce of the tax, thus applied, still remains capital, and is merely transferred from the tax-payer to the fund-holder. But the objection is never applicable in a country which increases rapidly in wealth.
Chapter II. Of Direct Taxes.
§ 1. Direct taxes either on income or expenditure.
Taxes are either direct or indirect. A direct tax is one which is demanded from the very persons who, it is intended or desired, should pay it. Indirect taxes are those which are demanded from one person in the expectation and intention that he shall indemnify himself at the expense of another: such as the excise or customs. The producer or importer of a commodity is called upon to pay tax on it, not with the intention to levy a peculiar contribution upon him, but to tax through him the consumers of the commodity, from whom it is supposed that he will recover the amount by means of an advance in price.
Direct taxes are either on income or on expenditure. Most taxes on expenditure are indirect, but some are direct, being imposed, not on the producer or seller of an article, but immediately on the consumer. A house-tax, for example, is a direct tax on expenditure, if levied, as it usually is, on the occupier of the house. If levied on the builder or owner, it would be an indirect tax. A window-tax is a direct tax on expenditure; so are the taxes on horses and carriages.
The sources of income are rent, profits, and wages. This includes every sort of income, except gift or plunder. Taxes may be laid on any one of the three kinds of income, or a uniform tax on all of them. We will consider these in their order.
§ 2. Taxes on rent.
A tax on rent falls wholly on the landlord. There are no means by which he can shift the burden upon any one else. It does not affect the value or price of agricultural produce, for this is determined by the cost of production in the most unfavorable circumstances, and in those circumstances, as we have so often demonstrated, no rent is paid.
This, however, is, in strict exactness, only true of the rent which is the result either of natural causes, or of improvements made by tenants. When the landlord makes improvements which increase the productive power of his land, he is remunerated for them by an extra payment from the tenant; and this payment, which to the landlord is properly a profit on capital, is blended and confounded with rent. A tax on rent, if extending to this portion of it, would discourage landlords from making improvements; but whatever hinders improvements from being made in the manner in which people prefer to make them, will often prevent them from being made at all; and on this account a tax on rent would be inexpedient unless some means could be devised of excluding from its operation that portion of the nominal rent which may be regarded as landlord's profit.
§ 3. —on profits.
340
Cf. Walker, “Land and Rent,” page 134.