tax (taks)

[ demanded the very persons who it is supposed as a general thing will bear their burden: as, for example, poll taxes, land or property taxes, income taxes, taxes for keeping man-servants, carriages, or dogs. Taxes are said to be indirect when they are demanded from persons who it is supposed as a general thing will indemnify themselves at the expense of others-that is, when they are levied on commodities before they reach the consumer, and are paid by those upon whom they ultimately fall, not as taxes, but as part of the market price of the commodity ( Cooley ): as, for example, the taxes called customs , which are imposed on certain cla es of imported goods, and those called excise duties , which are imposed on certain home manufactures and articles of inland production. In the United States all state and municipal taxes are direct, and are levied upon the a e ed values of real and personal property, while the revenue required for general governmental purposes is derived from indirect taxes upon certain imports, and upon whisky, tobacco, etc. In the United Kingdom the governmental revenues are derived from both direct and indirect sources-from taxes on income, stamps, dogs, etc., from imposts on a few imported articles of consumption, especially tea, spirits, tobacco, and wines, and from excise duties. House taxes, or taxes on rental, form the largest part of the local rev IMG:content-2908.png:[blocks in formation] source. Since (bountious Prince) on me and my Descent Thou doost impose no other tax nor Rent But one sole Precept, of most iust condition (No Precept neither, but a Prohibition). eminent. Sylvester, tr. of Du Bartas's Weeks, ii., Eden. Censure is the tax a man pays to the public for being Swift , Thoughts on Various Subjects. The ability of a country to pay taxes must always be proportioned, in a great degree, to the quantity of money in circulation, and to the celerity with which it circulates. A. Hamilton, Federalist, No. 12. Taxes are a portion of the produce of the land and labor of a country, placed at the disposal of the government. Ricardo, Pol. Econ., viii. 31. Charge; censure. He could not without grief of heart, without some tax upon himself and his ministers for the not executing the laws, look upon the bold licence of some pamphlets. Clarendon. 41. A le on to be learned; a task. Johnson. - Capitation tax, a poll-tax. - Collateral-inheritance tax. See collateral. - Diffusion of taxes. See diffusion. - Income tax. See income. - Inheritance tax law. See inheritance. - Poll tax, See poll - tax. - Single tax, in economics, taxation solely on land-value, to the exclusion of other taxation by the same state. According to the the ory advocated in recent times by Henry George and others, this tax should supersede all others, and should fall only on valuable land, exclusive of the improvements on such land. The single tax , in short, would call upon men to contribute to the public revenues not in proportion to what they produce or accumulate, but in proportion to the value of the natural opportunities they hold. It would compel them to pay just as much for holding land idle as for putting it to its fullest use. Henry George, Single Tax Platform. Succe ion tax. See succe ion. - Tax commi ioner, in certain of the United States, an officer, generally one of a board, charged with the valuation of property and a e ment of taxes thereon. - Tax deed, a deed by which the officer of the law undertakes to convey the title of a former owner of land, sold by the state or a municipality for unpaid taxes, to the purchaser at the tax-sale. - Tax lease, a lease used where, instead of selling the fee, the state sells a term of years in the land. - Tonnage tax, a tax on ve els, usually measured by the tonnage of the ve el, some times imposed as fee for entering the port, irrespective pide( æ ) + -an.] In ornith., having that modification of the scut ell i plantar tarsus in which the plantar scutella are contiguous, rectangular, and disposed in regular series.