NEW SYSTEM OF IMPERIAL TAXATION.
5 Great Brier Street, St. James's, 29th September 1856. Sin—In order to equalize the burden of taxation upon the community generally, and to render trade free and unshackled, it is proposed to re- peal the laws relating to import-duties, assessed taxes, licences' policies, succession and legacy duties, property and income taxes, as well as every law which may relate to any other imperial tax whatever ; and to substitute in their place an enactment that the imperial revenue should in future be raised by one general tax, namely, by a stamp-receipt tax, levied at an uni- form rate per pound sterling, on money-receipts, when sums amounting to five pounds sterling and upwards be given in payment for goods and other property purchased and for service rendered.
Assuming that sixpence per pound sterling would suffice to raise the im- perial revenue required, it would follow that every receipt for five pounds and under six pounds would be taxed two shillings and sixpence and that
every receipt for six pounds and under seven pounds would be sixpence, three shillings, and that every receipt for seven pounds and under eight .pounds would be taxed three shillings and sixpence ; and so on, increasing the stamp-receipt tax at the rate of sixpence per pound sterling up to the largest amount of pecuniary transactions when effected in bonit fide payment for goods and other property purchased and for service rendered.
These receipt-stamps should have adhesive plaster at the back, and a suf- ficient space should be left blank in the centre thereof for the signature of the giver of the receipt ; and it should be imperative upon the giver of a receipt for any stun that may amount to five pounds sterling and upwards, to affix the requisite stamp or stamps upon it, and to write his name thereon previous to delivery ; and, should any one give a receipt or an acknowledg- ment in any form whatever for a sum of money of or above that amount without having duly signed and affixed the requisite stamp or stamps thereon as aforesaid, he or she should be subject to imprisonment, and in addition to a heavy fine.
It should be imperative also upon every person paying for goods and other property purchased and for service rendered, in sums amounting to five pounds sterling and upwards, to demand and to enforce the delivery of a re- ceipt for the same with the requisite stamp or stamps duly affixed thereon and signed ; and the omission or the neglect to demand and to enforce the delivery of such legal receipt should be construed as an attempt to defraud the imperial revenue, and should consequently subject the transgressor to imprisonment, and in addition to a pecuniary penalty : moreover, a receipt that may not have had the requisite stamp or stamps duly affixed thereon, and signed at the time of its delivery, should not have legal validity, and should not be capable of being rendered subsequently valid.
If the proposed new stamp-tax on receipts be feasible, every inquisitorial annoyance and other impediment to the active and healthy development of the industry of the country, incident to the present system of taxation, would at once be removed ; and great economy would be effected by dis- pensing with the expensive services of an entire army of customhouse-offi- sera and other collectors of the imperial revenue. The purchase or sale, and the transfer of stock, shares, and debentures, and the raising of money by loan, &e., constituting a mere exchange of money, which is simply the representative of goods, property, or labour, in one sort of investment, for money, equally the representative of goods, property, or labour, in another sort of investment, should not be liable to this stamp-receipt tax ; but the sums of money of and above five pounds sterling paid to the broker, agent, or attorney, for their services in effecting the said mortgages, purchases, sales, transfers, &c., should, of course, be liable to this stamp-receipt tax, inasmuch as their charges would come -under the denomination of remuneration for service rendered. Such a tax would be an approximation to an equal tax upon the income of the commu- nity generally ; for every person would contribute his share of taxation di- rectly or indirectly towards the imperial exchequer in proportion to his an- nual expenditure.
Many articles of consumption would, no doubt, be charged with this stamp-receipt tax more than once ; for instance, on the occasion of goods being sold by the importer to the wholesale dealer, again by the latter to the retail dealer, finally by the retail dealer to the consumer : but this must frequently be the case by another process under the present system of tax- ation, to which is added an income-tax of elevenpence-halfpenny.or of one and fourpence per pound sterling, according to the amount of the income of the individual.
Sugar, an important article of consumption, is charged with an import- duty of nearly fifty per cent upon the inferior qualities ; and tea, another important article of consumption, with an import-duty of nearly two hun- dred per cent upon the inferior qualities : but the proposed stamp-receipt tax, supposing it to amount to sixpence per pound sterling, when paid three times over, as above presumed, would only amount to seven-and-a-half per cent upon the money value of each article of consumption.
It need scarcely be observed, that persons who may make purchases or payments under the value of five pounds sterling, would be totally exempt by the proposed plan from contributing in a direct manner towards the stamp-receipt tax, as receipts under that amount would not be liable to the stamp-tax ; nevertheless, they would contribute towards it indirectly, as the tax would have been already paid by the retail dealer when he purchased his goods from the wholesale dealer, and by the latter when he purchased the same goods from the importer or the manufacturer. The total amount annually expended in sums of and above five 'pounds sterling, in the United Kingdom, can only be ascertained by the practical working of the proposed stamp-receipt tax. The plan itself might be tested, for a year or two at the low rate of one penny per pound sterling, in • lieu of the present unpopular income-tax ; and, if it should be found on such trial likely to realize the result anticipated, the rate per pound sterling might subsequently be raised to the estimated amount requisite to supersede the necessity of any other tax being imposed on the community solely for
• purposes of imperial revenue. Those who may be curious enough to wish to investigate the mode of col- lecting the tax now imposed on the manufacture, sale, and exportation of • the article paper, are referred to the Act of Parliament on that head, en- titled "An Act to Consolidate and Amend the Laws for Collecting and 13ecuring the Duties of Excise on Paper made in the United Kingdom, cap.
23, anno secundo et tertio Victoria) Regina). (19th July 1839.) " Printed by George E. Eyre and William Spottiswoode, 1848. Price one shilling. After the perusal of the twenty-nine pages that embrace this act of Par- liament, it may be presumed that few will be disposed to consider the sys- tem of levying oetroi dues at the gates of Continental cities more calculated to impede trade and commerce than some of the provisions now in operation in our own country in regard to the enforcement of the Excise-laws.
I have the honour to be, Sir, your obedient humble servant, W. BRYAN COOKE.
Previous page
