The Charleston daily news. [volume] (Charleston, S.C.) 1865-1873, 1867-01-05
TIE NEW STATE TAX.


j A>communieation in another column, directs
attention to the recent enactment by the Gem
eral Assembly of South Carolina, of Tax Law
| for 1866 and 1867 The merchants and business
men of every grade will doubtless move at
once in this matter, both in their individual
and corporate capacities. We do not know by
whom this Tax Bill was drawn, but it is clear
that it was hastily prepared, and is as far from
an equitable apportionment of the burden as a
Tax Bill well can be. We know nothing OF its
history, but from the internal evidence, should
say that it was tinkered up in the committee
room to the last possible moment, and then
rapidly smuggled through the several readings
into the dignity of "Act." How strange
that the most important of all laws should al
ways be thus ushered into being. The Legis-
lature spends shours, days and weeks, discussing
unimportant questions, the Tax and Appro-
priation Bills being left entirely to the Com
mittee of WAYS and Means. The House, to oil
intents and purposes, never passes on them at
all. The Clerk reads them in formal, mo-
notonous manner, no one listening; and when
the Legislature adjourns no member outside the
committee knows what the Tax Law is; and we
never can have well digested Tax Bill until
the time for the meeting of our General AS
sembly is changed. What are Tax and Appro-
priation Bills when set in the balance against
visions of Christmas turkey and smoking plum
pudding?
The Act just passed is open to objections on
various grounds. In the first place, insofar as
it relates to a tar for the year 1865, 1t IS
clearly an cr-post. .tacto law and cannot be exc
cuted Commission merchants, auctlonecrs
and others are taxed from two to ten per cent.
ON their sales for 1866, the proceeds of which,
in many cases, have long since been returned
and the accounts closed. There are houses
here, for instance, selling whiskey for parties
in Cincinnati, Baltimore, etc., on which they
charged, say from two-and-half to five per cent
commission. They have made return sales for
the past year and paid in the money The
two-and-a-half TO FIVE per cent. commission is
now all they have to show for the transaction.
And yet the State now asks these commission
merchants to pay $40 on every SlOO, or from
one to three hundred per cent. more than the
total amount of their commissions. This is
robbery, not taxation
The tax on real estate is thirty cents on
every dollar, and this is the only low ta1 IN
the whole schedule. The system is iniquitous,
and especially detrimental to all the inter-
ests of our city Whether or not all the appro-
priations made by the Legislature were neces-
sary, is not to the present purpose. We
might have grumbled at heavy taxation, no
matter how oquitably the burden had been ap-
portioned, but ne would have had no special
grounds for our objections. As it is, the fact
of a discrimination in favor of the agricultural
and to the prejudice of the commercial interest,
is so palpable and go oppressive that it natu-
rally rouses all the opposition we are capable
of. This discrimination, together with the er-
post .facto character Of its provisions for 1865,
in our opinion, offers sufficient ground for
general resistance to its execution. The Cham
ber of Commerce and the Board of Trade
should lead the way in the matter; other cor
porations will follow. Our correspondent sug-
gests general mass meeting of citizens at an
early date. Perhaps that would be best.
That our citizens should be sensitive to an
additional onerous tax now, when they already
pay a heavy tax to the United States, and
another to the city, is hardly to be wondered at.
We regret that our delegation in the Legs
lature did not find time to examine the Act
before they came down. And this, too, with
member from Charleston in the Speakers
chair It seems they had first to be IN
formed of its unjust enactments, by cur
citizens, who read the Act with great attention
upon it's first publication in Charleston. As no
redress can be expected, therefore, from cur
legislators will not our leading merchants take
tho matter in hand, and rouse the public mind
to q full understanding of the case. 1t may
suit the narrow prejudices of certain up-country
representatives to make Charleston pay for the
entire government of the State. To tell them
that such policy is short-sighted is of no
avail We must see to it ourselves, that no
suoh unjust burden is laid upon our shoulders.
In old times, "when all the world vent out
to be taxed,'' it was understood that the tribute
required was equitable, and duly apporticned
to the means of the several individuals who
were to pay it. There is no reason why it
should be otherwise now. If ever there was a
time when generous State might grant an es-
emption from taxation to any Of her citizens,
such discretion should have been exercised at
this time in favor of our poor, charred, weather
beaten, bombarded, and ruined city. We are
struggling to recover our lost ground, and by
way of helping us to accelerate our speed, our
alma mater "a step-mother in this insancc)
loads us with this grievous burden.