Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1881-01-22
TAXATION.

The report of the State Board of Equal
ization presents the first trustworthy data
for ascertaining the results of the revenue
system put in operation by the new Con-
stitution. The conclusions to be drawn
from the report are exceedingly unfavora-
BILE to the new system of taxation. The
latter in fact is shown quite conclusivelY
to be failure, and to be in many respects
far more inequitable and clumsy than the
methods which it superseded. The de-
siderata of any scheme of taxation were
long ago pointed out by Adam Smith.
The taxpayer should contribute in proper
ton to his ability. Taxation should be
certain and definite, and not arbitrary.
It should be levied at the time and in the
manner most convenient to the contrib
utor. And it should be SO contrived g as
" both to take out and to keep out of
"the pockets of the people as little as
"possble, over and above what it brings
So into the public treasury" We may add
to these requirements of a rational scheme
of taxation the consideration that no tax
ought to be levied unless there is a mani
fest possibility of collecting it, and that to
impose taxes which from the nature of the
case cannot be collected is to overthrow the
balance of the whole system, and to foster
deceit, fraud and hypocrisy in the public.
The trainers of the new Constitution did
not know anything about political econ
omy, but they believed that great deal
of property had escaped taxation in the
past, and they were determined to
make everybody pay in the future. In
the innocence of their hearts they
imagined that this could be done by
decreeing it, and SO resolute and unfinch-
ing were they in the prosecution of their
purpose that they refused to exempt from
taxation even the shadows of property,
but insisted that everything which
represented property should be as
sessed. 1t happened that CONFIDENTLY
with this access of public spirit there
prevailed belief that land monopoly could
be put an end to by taxation, and to this
end it was sagely agreed that cultivated
and uncultivated land of the same char
acter and quality should be assessed at the
same rate when in contiguity. Evidently
the Convention thought that in this case it
has devised rule which would only work
one way. So the new Constitution set out
with great flourish and "a greatexpectation
on the part of those who had
failed to comprehend the instrument while
it was under discussion. The taxation of
mortgages, the taxation of credits and
stocks, the taxation of uncultivated land
at the same rate as cultivated, was to re-
generate everything, and to tighten the
burden of taxation on the masses by fore
ing the rich to bear their Just share of
the general load. How the new system
has succeeded the State Board of Equal
ization tells us, and truly more dismal
catalogue of failures and dlsappoint-
ments has seldom been printed. For
it has been shown in this report that
the ways in which taxation is escaped are
more numerous than ever before; that
while personal property has always evaded
assessment, cal property has now found
it possible to follow the same course that
the attempts to impose double taxation
have in large number of cases been
eluded by resort to shifts which resulted
in the loss of even single taxation that
the endeavor to break up land monopoly
by taxing uncultivated lands at the same
rate as cultivated has operated as a raid
upon the small farmers !; that owing to the
exemption of growing crops from taxation,
and the failure to provide for the assess.