THE INCOME TAX IN GERMANY.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXIII, Issue 5268, 11 February 1878, Page 3

THE INCOME TAX IN GERMANY.

They have an income tax in Germany —not levied by the Empire, but by the separate States, and in many-instances it is assessed on a system exceedingly detailed and minute, not to say doctrinaire. The 'intention is that every class of income shall pay according to its character, and, that no class shall escape the cognisance of the revenue officers. - In some places, in Saxony, for instance, when it is the question of assessing the income of a foreigner or any other person as to whose resources it is a matter of difficulty for the officials to obtain accurate information, they estimate his income by his outgo, and as they cannot tax what ho gets they tax what he spends. If a man lives in a two-pair back, blacks his own shoes, and lives on a diet of royyenhrod, wurst , and einf aches irod, he stands a chance of escaping notice altogether or getting off for a very trifling contribution; but if he luxuriates in the first floor of a fashionable quarter, keeps a staff of servants, and entertains company, it is assumed, whatever he may say to the contrary, that he is posse-aed of . considerable property, and be is mulcted accordingly. The precautions taken by German Governments to detect the dodges of fraudulent taxpayers are not confined to the living ; they extend beyond the grave. If a man who, during his lifetime has professed to have a small income, leaves behind him a largo property, the emissaries of the State call his heirs to account, and stop their legacies in transitu until all arrearages have been cleared off, and probably some heavy fines exacted. A case of tiiis sort has just occurred in Stuttgart. The fortune left by Hacklander, the well-known publisher and author who recently died in that city, is said to be out of all proportion to the amount he was in the habit of returning for assessment to the income-tax, and all the property bequeathed by him to his family has been seized by the officers of the revenue pending satisfaction of the claims of the Crown. His house has been temporarily confiscated, his balance at his bankers attached, and even an embargo laid on the original manuscript of the ,Homan Meints, Lehens. -Whether Hacklander really did defraud , the Government remains yet to be proved. It is on suspicion that these steps have been taken, and we are not surprised to learn that the author’s family have appealed to the King of Wurtemburg to put a stop to these apparently arbitrary, and as they probably think unnecessary, proceedings.