The Sun.
London, England, 1833-05-03 00:00:00

TAXATION.

Mr. COBBETT rose to make a complaint on be-
half of the working classes both of England, Scot-
land, and Ireland, of impartiality in regard of taxation,
a complaint, on their part, that heavy stamp duties and
auction duties, where imposed upon them, while the richer
part of the community escaped. Before he proceeded in
his statement, he desired to make an observation or two
on the reflections that had been thrown out against him
from time to time, on the assumption that he desired to
set the poor against the rich. If a man in that House
was never to say the poor were il:-treated—if he was
never to put forwird the claim of the poor against
the rich, then indeed would that House prove to be con-
stituted of the representa,ives of the rich and not of the
poor. He complained that of eight millions of taxes,
raised from the pockets of the people, (including
the oosts of oolle,tion,) a very small portion
indeed were paid by those who were able lo
pay them, and than which nothing could be snore
unjust or more calculated to give dissatisfaction to the
working classes of society. The Hon. Gentleman then
read the following resolutions, occasionally commenting
upon them as he proceeded.:.--
'° Resolved—That an impost, which according to the
letter of the law imposing it, is made to press with greater
weight on one man, or on one class of men, is, properly
speaking, not a tax, but a confiscation, and the law itn.
posing it is, if properly defined, a penal law, such as were
the laws imposing double taxes on the Catholics of Eng-
land, and on the Quakers of the United States of America;
and that, when one part of the community is compelled to
pay a tax, from which another part of that some commu-
nity, having the same or greater means, is wholly exempt.
ed, there is a clear and undeniable confiscation ; and that,
if such confiscation be inflicted without crime domtnitted
by, and proved upon, the party on whom it is infl cted,
such confiscation is an act of tyranny.
" That, by the Act of Parliament passed on de 11 th
of July, 1815, being chap. 184. of the 55th of Geo. 111.,
and by the Act passed on the sth of August, 1 522, being
chap. 117 of the 3d of Geo. IV., imposing certain duties
on stamps, amounting annually, in the aggregate, to up-
wards of seven millions a-year, the utmost care has been
taken to exempt the nobility and great landed proprietors
from bearing any but a very small share of the burden;
and further, to make the tax heavier and heavier, in pro-
portion to the smallness of the amount of property on
which it is levied ; so that each tax goes on, pressing
heavier and heavier, from the very rich down to the very
poor, as will clearly appear by a reference to the letter of
the said Acts.

" That by the first of the said acts, vaiiour duties on le-
gacies are imposed, applicable to different degrees of rela-
tionship between the legatees and the successors and the
deceased, beginning at one per cent., and going on to ten
per cent. : hut that, from these duties all freehold property
is wholly exempt, anc, therefore, from this tax, which is,
on an average, about three per cent., besides the probate
duty, on all other property in the kingdom left by will,
the estates of the nobility and landed gentry (including the
advowsons and lay-tithes) are exempted, while the father,
the mother, the child, of the fundholder, the tradesman,
the farmer, or other person bequeathing personal property,
has one per cent. to pay on the amount of the legacy,
while a brother who has had a thousand pounds left him
by a brother, has thirty pounds to pay on this duty, and
while a distant relation of the deceased has, on a legny
of the same amount, to pay one hundred pounds.
" That, in regard to the probates of wills and letters of
administration on intestate succession, if the deceased leave
property above the value of 201., his successors have to
pay a stamp duty of 10e.—that is to say, at the rate of
2/. per cent. on the value of the property ; but that, if
the party dying leave by will any sum from 30,0001. to
5 0001., the duty is only 1/. 10s. per cent. ; and Chit, in
this case again, all freehold property is exempted.
" That, in the caue of conveyances of ail sorts, the duty
upon a thing of five pounds, or on anything under twenty
pounds value is ten shillings, and the duty upon a thing
of two hundred thou and pounds value, or any sum above
that, is a thousand pounds ; no that, in the latier case it
may be less than ten shillings per cent. on the value of the
thing conveyed, and in the former case, if of five pounds
vatue, it is two hundred shillings per cent. on the value of
the thing conveyed; and thus, in this case, the poor man
pays twenty times as much tax as the rich man on pre-
cisely the same sort of property, and under the same Act
of Parliament : and that, as the act will show, the weight
of the duty goes on increasing from ten shillings per cent.
to two hundred shit ings per cent., exactly in the propor-
tion that the value of the properly becomes smaller and
smaller in amount.

" That in the case of leases of lauds, of hurls, tene-