4. A tax on all transfers of real property (droit de mutation).
5. An annual tax on the capital value of real property (impôt foncier).
6. An annual tax on the capital of all personal property and on incomes (impôt mobilier).
The last three taxes are the most important and productive, their united product being equal to about nine tenths of the entire revenue.
Concerning the results of this novel and complicated system of taxation in Switzerland there is great diversity of opinion. That it is not uniform throughout the comparatively small territorial divisions of the country to which it has been made applicable, only a very few Cantons being reported as in agreement; that no fixed rules governing progression or gradation in assessments have been generally agreed upon and established; that the practical administration of the system is in the highest degree arbitrary; and that the ascertainment of the tax that an individual or estate shall pay often involves a series of complex and difficult computations and additions, are all points in respect to which there is no question.
The anomaly and gross inequity of double taxation on one and the same property, contingent on the circumstance that the situs of the property and the domicile of its owner are not within the same territorial and governmental jurisdictions, and which is at present a subject of much discussion and deprecation in the United States, is also a vexing problem in the system of taxation in Switzerland; two different communes, as a rule, making demands of a taxpayer by reason of his holding a landed estate in one and residing and exercising the rights of a citizen in the other, and the probability of any just and satisfactory solution of this perplexing problem is as remote in one country as in the other.
Notwithstanding the above and other objectionable features, the people of Switzerland appear to be generally satisfied with their fiscal experiment, and thus far have exhibited but little disposition to change it; and all the most important Cantons that have tested it report a steady increase in their aggregate valuation of both property and income. Even the extreme high rates of taxation assessed on large properties and incomes—amounting in some Cantons almost to confiscation—have not been generally regarded with disfavor, but probably for the reason that the number of persons in Switzerland who are liable to such assessments is comparatively limited.
On the other hand, it is contended that any fiscal gain that is reported under the new system has been more than counterbalanced by depreciation in land values and injury to local trade. In
