Some Strange Taxes.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume XXXXV, Issue 258, 30 November 1903, Page 4

Some Strange Taxes.

IMPOSTS IN FOREIGN COUNTRIES. (Pearson's Weekly.) People who think that taxes in Britain are more numerous and press more heavily than those of other countries ought to live in Prance. For in that Tand of liberty, equality and fraternity, taxation is cotveotly comparable to an insatiable monster with its covetous eye rpon every possible taxable thing. The Slate takes the le; :'. It begins by taxing all the indoor air you breathe and the sunlight that cheers up and warms the interior of your house. This it accomplishes by a vigorously enforced door ard window tax.

Once England groaned under this iniquitous impost. You can see here and there to th.s very da', the legacy it has left behird it. in she shape of old houses with the bulk, of the windows brickefi up. Whenever you see a building thus t meted, you may be sure it was erected i>eiore 'B.">l. for in that year the tax was repealed, in response to a universal howl of execration.

Another imposr. which our neighbours across the Channel have to pay still, but which we have long been freed from, is tin- poll tax. Jt is assessed on t:ie of «three days' gross ir.co:r.e, imc! is -payable by every French citizen ci either sex and also by every foreigner who is in the enjoyment of i> rights of citizenship and who is not actually a pauper. Ever, miners iving with their parents are not exempt from this tax provided they are earning anything at all, so that the four-teen-year-old French, office boy at a salary of seven shillings a week is called upon once a year to hand 'over three of them to the State. Then there is the tax known as the " Contribution des Patentes." This is really a license duty paid to the Government,for the privilege of T\ing permitted to earn a livingj and is assessed upon every individual Frenchman or foreigner in France engaged in commerce, trade, industry, or who practises a profession. It varies from £l6 (400 francs) to Is 8d (2 francs) per annum.

The lodger tax presses very hardly on the very poorest of the French lower middle classes. It is a direct annual levy of a fixed percentage upon the rental paid for all furnished apartments let by householders. So that the harassed widow or the wife of the struggling clerk, who thinks to augment her income bytaking in paying guests, finds that fihe has had to hand over to the tax collector a considerable proportion of her receipts. The -direct imperial taxes on commodities, also, are exceedingly galling, including, as they do, imposts levied on salt, sugar, matches, oil, vinegar, and many other articles of daily use and consumption. But worst of all arc the "octroi" duties, which arc levied all over France by the municipal and communal authorities. Every commune or city of over 4000 inhabitants has the right to le\y its own octroi. Barriers are erected across the roads leading to the "close towns." as they are called, and heavy dues have to be paid by vendors of meat, bread, vegetables, wood, coal, and, in tact, practically everything that is perishable or consumable, ere they are permitted to bring their wares within the charmed circle. This tax invariably a peculiarly disagreeable impression on all strangers. The very signt of an octroi guard house, with its supercilious, lounging officials, and its ostentatious display of implements for probing waggons, prizing open boxes and boring casks, conjures up visions of mediaeval tyranny and rapine. Nor w. France alone in : he perpetuation of the octroi. Prussia has a similar institution. which it calis the "Meal and Meat iax." Italy, where the system <vas formerly unknown, introduced it in Is >±, and has been continually extending it

HaniUirg, once a free port, now levies what is l.nown as the " Victual Tax." a direct and exceedingly heavy impost, which lias the effect of enoriiioush increasing the cost of all kinds of comes: 1U..-S consumed l>y its cit-i/eiis.

In every city, town, atic village in Spain a ■Ycnsur.ios" duty is levied upon everything that is consumed—that is, anything to eat, drink or burn.

Among the many curious little taxes which subjects of the l.'zar are called upon to pay, there is one —that on sledges—whica never has been, nor is likely to be, imposed on Britons, for the reasons that sledges are practically unknown hero. Neither would the Russian "Sojourn Tax" proves a success here. It is imposed upon every "mouiik" (labourer) who resides for more than throe days outside the limit oi his own village or commune! Italy taxes heavily all sorts and kinds of •domestic animals. Theyi are divided;, into thirteen classes, and the annual impost varies from £3 in the case of a careiage horse, down to fourpence for a sheep or goat. You also have to pay in most Italian cities and communes, for the privilege of keeping a domestic servant ; and there is also levied a "Family Tax," which is practically a graduated capitation tax, Britishers grumble at the income tax, but in Denmark, as in some

other countries, there is not one income tax only, but two. The first is impeiial in its collection, and in tiie objects to which it is applied. The second is levied by the munici%

pal authorities for municipal purposes, and is fixed at 2 per cent, on the ratepayer's gross earnings. Moreover, only iiicom.es of under £25 are exempt, instead of £l5O as with us. Austria levies a special tax on swamps, u-ith the result that un-

drained land is rapidly reclaimed. Less defensible is the " hauecj.assensteur" (literally, " house-class tax") This curious impost is levied on houses, or, rather, on the inmates—in accordance with the respectability of their (the houses) external appearance. Thus, for example, if your residence be well kept, freshly painted, jvj'th a trim garden in front, and .cle.aji. daintily. draped windows, you .Mill iiud yourself mulcted in a far greater sum than your slatternly .neighbour.

Austria, too, is the only European country that has retained a tax on newspapers, although it is not nearly so onerous .as it was in Britain .where, at one time, it amounted to ompence per pfr j. su &M y hd lor each ad\ti iisemeut.

•Switzerland is unique in j (s cn _ lorcement ot a compul.-orv lire in stance tax. I e:,.' -n !,,;„ a tax • twelve a year , ! t .' 1>(1 mghiingules. y O . too. does ]!r,.„i c .„. Hi.d it al.o Ukes toll of oerantbula- ;"!;; U " i! ' H ' bal Js . babies' Jlolland has its -Pergonal T-,x " an unposl-o, rath'.- .-,; us o[ j; t.,,,1 ;, i '• Jri lls doors and its u.ndcws on its Learths and tire, aces, on the ..mm,,.-.., on the gas-bracts, ~-, lh » si.ks, lavatorl -es, ,,d cc,-~U,,s This tax ,s paid lv roc,. w :1 cth t , ,s „,vne, ~,r £ ledger. ' l

JU " wifle world the mit-fiis 01 Vi-ma i, uv V) heaviest taxes. aid the mo.-.' Fv " whe,>eelser*ber y byi, 1 ,p 0 /- isjjlo ;; 01 less a haphazard process. n ere they hive mtucc-d it to a finu art To begin with, an ordinary Viennese householder pays a house rent tax of 4o per cent, on his actual! rent, a crushing burden, which Londoners would not statttl for a single Jiistnnt,

Next he pays a stiff license duty, similar in character to the French "contribution 'des patentes," but far heavier, for permission to carry on his trade, business or occupation. Then the municipal income tax has to be meti This is altogether distinct from, and, of course, in addition, the imperial income tax, and it varies between 10 per cent, and 20 per cent, of the net earnings. Afterwards the Chamber of Commerce comes along- with -demands for sundry levies. And, lastly, there is a whole hast of municipal imposts, tire chief among tliem being- the "Stomach Tax," which raises the price ho has to pay for the whole of his eatables and drinkables by from 15 to 50 per cent. The latter is levied in the usual octroi fashion on the comestibles and other articles imported into the city from the surrounding country, side ; and it is noteworthy, a.s showing the thoroughness of Viennese methods of taxation, that even the horses that draw the provision carts are not permitted to escape, four kreutzers being levied upon each animal. The result of all this is that the capital of the Austro-Hungtarian Empire is to-day the dearest place in the world to live in, and people who would be considered in fairly well-to-do circumstances anywhere else, have to put up with the most limited accommodation, and to content themselves with a supper of dry bread and beer at a cafe, because more than one subtsantial meal a day at their own homes is entirely beyond their means.