DIFFICULTIES OF A PROPERTY-TAX,
TO THE EDITOR OF THE SPECTATOR.
Bishopsgade atreci, November 18th.
Sin—As your columns, as well as many of your readers, advocate the imposal of an Income or Property-taxaallow me to call your and their at- tention to the many difficulties which would be found in raising such a tax. upon land. The facility with which land found tenants during the war, when, owing to the high price of produce, all land was worth some rent, appears to baYe been forgotten or overlooked by those persons who are now most clamorous for an Income-tax. Things, howeyer, are very different at present,—when many farms are let rent-free; and others at no certain rent, the owners being obliged to take only what the tenants may bring them from time to time. For other farms, the tenants are so greatly in debt for arrears of unpaid rent, that all which is now paid may be considered as back rent, and not as the rent of the last year : and if the receipts given be examined, they will be found to be worded accordingly. There is yet another case, which, I fear, applies to a very large portion of the English tenantry,—viz. where a part only of the year's rent is paid out of profit, the remainder being paid out of capital. In such a case, you might, indeed, call upon the landlord for a poundage upon all which he receives ; but how is the tenant to be charged ? It would not be just (as during the war) to estimate the tenant's income by the sum paid to his landlord, because his rent is no longer paid wholly out of income or profit. I suspect, Mr. Editor, that the above-mentioned cases would puzzle the Chancellor of the Exchequer, not less than they will assuredly puzzle your readers.
I remain, Sir, you very obedient Servant, A CONSTANT READER.
P. S. It is an old saying (arid a true one also), that we ought to be just before we are bountiful; that is to say, we are bound to pay our debts before we have a right to be extravagant. Would it, then, be just to tax the Fundholder before that all sinecures and unmerited pensions are abolished ? I leave the solution of the above question to the casuists.
Previous page
