TAXATION OF TURKEY.

Globe, Volume IV, Issue 433, 2 November 1875, Page 3

TAXATION OF TURKEY.

The provincial taxation of Turkey is (says the Pall Mall Gazette ) conducted on principles only known to the financial authorities of that country, and the results are sometimes not a little startling. Vice-Consul Biliotti, in his report on the trade and commerce of Trebizoud for the past year, calls attention to some “ interesting facts,” which he states are detected by comparing the revenues and expenditure of that province for the year 1867 68 with those for the year 1873-74. From the figures quoted it seems that the “ Bedel Askbrid,” or tax paid for exemption from the military service,is the only one which has decreased in the period referred to; and as it has always been levied at the rate of about 27 piastres for each male, it must be inferred that about 2000 Christians, and perhaps in several cases also the families to which they belong, have emigrated to other countries. With this decrease in the population may be detected an augmentation of taxation of 2,520,946 piastres in the space of six years, or at the rate of 2£- per cent on the sum originally levied. Deducting from the above sum the decrease of 53,881 piastres on the Askerie, there remains a net 'surplus of 2,467.065 piastres in favor of the Government. On the other hand, the expenditure in 1873-74 exceeds that of 1867-68 by 2,890,673 piastres, or at the rate of more than 3 per cent annually for upwards of six years. Therefore the Government, after over-taxing the population with 2,520,946 piastres, has to pay out of its general income, over and above this sum, 423,607 piastres to cover the extra expenditure, It must be presumed that these sums are expended for the amelioration of the administrative government of the province ; as, however, little or no progress seems to have taken place in Ibis respect within the last six years, it is, says M. Biliotti, difficult to find an excuse for the increase of the taxation by which the miserable populations of that part of Anatolia have been wantonly over-burdened.