The National Register.
London, England, 1815-01-08 00:00:00

PROP ERTY TAX.

Our readers will have observed in our last publication, an
extract from a pamphlet recently published on the sub-
ject of the Property Tax. We have since looked more care-
fully Into this tract, and find that its thew v is bottomed on
an idea of resolving our whole system of taxation into a
Property Tax—thus leaving capital unfettered until it's pro-
fits are completed, and its fruits ready to be gathered. In
theory this principle is plausible, and could it he carried into
effect, would prove itself, and especially at this moment,
highly beneficial. Whether it could or could not be carried
into operation is another question ; if it :were possible, we
should become converts to the principle. It is, however,
but bare justice to state, that the author's object is to con-
tinue the Property Tax, of course with proper modifications,
as to the nature of the income arising from property, and to
repeal the Assessed Taxes.
To the Assessed Taxes, or Taxes on Consumption, the
author ascribes the present disposition in our great people to
emigrate; ansPindeed it is the strongest argument in favour
of the Property Tax, that it draws from the pockets of the
wealthy aristocracy and the monied interest, what taxes on
consumption cannot produce. For instance—suppose a
nobleman with a landed estate of 100,0001. per annum chuses
to withdraw to Flanders, and shut up his houses in England,
be does not pay a penny to the parliamentary revenue of the
country, nor, indeed, on his houses, to its parochial wants.
Again ; supposing a stockholder chuses to live in a garret,
while in the receipt of an income of 10,0001. per annum, he
also pays nothing. These circumstances are certainly worth
consideration.

" Of the Assessed Taste.," says the writer, a the greatest ports( r-
tion is collected from deities on houses and windows. The idea of
taxing luxury and qrticles of consumption, has been carried to such
an extept, as to paralize all the property in good houses.—And, there
is now little short of a capital of one hundred millions in houses
building and uninhabited. •
It seems to have been thought, that because so much was pro-
duced in given circumstances, it was only necessary to increase the
rate, in order to obtain a proportionate fund. Hence taxes upon
taxes have been laid upon houses, and it is at last discovered, that
them are no consumers, and, consequently, that the impost lays on
the !milder's capital. This capital he has expended iei excise on
bricks; in ditty on timber; in an increased ground-rent—so that •
whatever may be the amount received by the revenue, it is more
than counterbalanced by the inertness of the builder's capital.
" Again, as the taxes on windows have been so augmented of late
years, many boildingS have remained unoccupied because the im-
posts have been so heavy.
On this class of individuals the Assessed Taxes press most heavily;
they operate so as to prevent the occupation of large, and encourage
that of small houses. Let a calculation be made of the value of
houses that let for 33 or 401. and those w Inch let for 60 or 701 it
will be found that the former do not consume more than one-fourth
of the capital necessary for the latter. In this instance the owner
derives the benefit, and the revenue is excluded.

Hence, I contend, that the Assessed Taxes are, in a great measure,
the rause of the immense capital which has been expended ill build-
ing, lying useless to the community.
There is a common idea, that the country is over-built. This is
possible to a certain degree, but not so much as to necasiou the evil
in its present extent. The result would soon be discovered, it an
Act of Parliament should pass declaring the repeal of ti►e Assessed
Taxes from and after the bill of. April. • We stioald then find that
the present depression on house properly would cease ; as even, if
thirty millions of the one him& d millions of property were brousht
into activity, and this the repeal of the Taxes would ensure, it
would render per►nanent the presetft rents."
But the writer's object appears to he as much to relieve
the commercial as the building capital, from• injudicious re-

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