The aegis & intelligencer. [volume] (Bel Air, Md.) 1864-1923, 1900-01-12

from foreign stocks and bonds is also
taxed as it passes through the hands
of the bankers who pay it, and as all
the great domestic corporations pay
the tax on their incomes as corpora
tions, it is contributed indirectly by
their stockholders in proportion to
their holdings of stocks. Debtors,
both individual and corporate, are re-
quired to deduct the tax from the in
terest they pay. Thus, the only cases
in which the tax is paid in the first in
stance by those liable to it are those
of landowners occupying their own
houses or tilling their own land, and
of persons whose incomes are derived
from trading or from professional
labor. When it happens that the tax
indirectly collected includes an
exemptions allowed by law, the tax
payer is not liable, the excess is re-
funded to him on application to the
proper authorities. The exemption is
entire for incomes of elG0 and less,
EGO for incomes over el60 and under
!e400, and, SO on, until only e70 is free
for incomes between 5000 and GOO.
All incomes over e100 pay in full.
The subordinate officers charged
with the duty of carrying out the pro-
visions of the income tax laws in
it.,i, tod iY,o
which strikirGly illustrates the con-
servatism of the nation and its stead
fast adherence to old customs. The
Commissioners of Inland Revenue,
who have, primarily, charge of the
business, do not themselves appoint
their agents, but leave that function
to the Land Tax Commissioners.
whose offices were created more than
two hundred years ago for the purpose
of assessing the general tax on land.
These Land Tax Commissioners are
appointed annually by an act Of Par
Lament naming them, and called, for
that reason, the Name act. Their
clerks each year, in each district,
make out the list for the succeeding
year and submit it to the member OF
Parliament for the county in which
the district lies, and after he has revis-
ed and added to it Parliament en-
bodies it in the Name act, as a matter
Of course. The Land Tax Commits
sioners receive DO compensation and
do no more toward collecting the in
come tax than appoint for each dis
trict officers called General Commits
sioners. who serve without pay and
appoint Additional Commissioners,
also without pay, two paid assessors
for each parish and salaried clerk.
The Board Of Inland Revenue ap-
points to assist the assessors what are
called Surveyors of Taxes and Inspec-
tors, but the assessors do the greater
part of the work.
The machinery for executing thelaw
being thus constituted, the assessor
begins, in April, sending to each in
habitant OF the parish for which he |
acts blanks for making the returns the |
law requires. The returns include,
besides the particu ar5 Of the taxpay-
er's income, lists of his employees, of |
his dodgers, and of the persons for |
whom he acts as agent. There is |
penalty for neslecting to make returns |
but it is rarely necessary to resort to il,
and the returns usually all come III |
within a month or 50. They are then
examined by the assessor, corrected |
where he thinks CORE c:iors are neces-
sary, and passed over to the surveyor,
who also examines them, and, ON no.
tice to the taxpayer, corrects them.
He then sends them to the General
Commissioners, who hear and decide
appeals from his decisions in di :puted
cases. In these appeals the appellant
is examined orally, and. if he persists
in disputing the surveyors appraise-
nent, he is required 20 support his OBJ
jecticEs by oath, but otherwise his
mere word is accepted.
In the metropolis VI London the pro
ceedings are more elaborate, and in
Scotland and Ireland they differ some
what from those in Englaud and
Wales, but the principle is everywhere
fhe same. The superior off GERS charg-
FL with The assessment of incomes are
usually men OF property and position,
~ no give their services Gratuitous!y,
and who discharge their disagreeabIe
duty honestly, it not always in the
pleasantest nuHnner. 1t speaks wei!
Tor them and for the income taxpayers
hat not more than one-third OF the
incomes taxable under schedule ID
'ails to be reached, and, of course,
scarcely any of those which are in
GUIDED in the other schedules. The
greatest loss is naturally upon incomes