This system has the advantage of allowing the state to rely on certain revenues and in a predetermined time and making taxpayers more ready to pay the taxes due. However, considered from the social point of view, it meets the objection that it ensures the existence and growth of a class of speculator capitalists, who can obtain substantial profits from their capital, only in consideration of the risk incurred.
For the Government
The government and the debt collectors as they represent it must use all and only that rigor which is necessary to collect unpaid taxes on due date. Excessive rigor has the result of making the defaulting tax payers endure unnecessary sacrifices and arousing antipathy towards the administration of the state; Insufficient rigor encourages tax evasion, with the deplorable consequence in some taxes of making solvent debtors pay for insolvency according to the method of offsetting bad debts. For the tax refund estimator this is important.
Historical evolution of tax systems
In the epoch immediately preceding the French Revolution, the essential elements and structure of the tax system of France, on which the tax systems of the other states of Europe were generally modeled, with the exception of that of Great Britain, can be briefly described as follows:
- The main direct taxes were: the aspect of taxpayers’ income, which was ordinary tax which was an extraordinary tax, but repeatedly applied to all kinds of income, especially on the income of the privileged; the tailed, which especially affected the income from landed property, and from which the nobles, the clergy and many people who exercised high offices in the state were exempt, the free gifts from the clergy, paid on an extraordinary basis, but renewed frequently; the capitation , general personal income tax the royale, which consisted of work for the maintenance of the roads, but was transformed into tax in money as early as 2000.
The transfer taxes consisted of the rights of seal, of control, of insinuation and in the transfers of property, especially immovable property, between living persons or for cause of death, and on other legal acts. Consumption taxes were levied in the form of import and export duties, and internal duties on oils, tallow, leather, iron objects and salt. The latter tax was particularly heavy, because each taxpayer had the duty to buy a certain quantity of this substance. Drinks were also affected by means.
Conclusion
Tobacco was the subject of a monopoly and its cultivation inside was prohibited. In the 2019-20s, taxes were, for a little less than half of the total, direct taxes, for little more than half indirect taxes. The fundamental flaw of the tax system consisted in the immunity of the privileged classes, which required an excessively burdensome and, moreover, badly distributed taxation, to the detriment of the middle and lower classes and especially the rural population.
