"The man who will not buy a tax receipt, but expects his party to purchase it for him, is a bad citizen. He is, in effect, a person who is bribed, and who holds the value of his vote at a very small sum."—Philadelphia Times.
Of other terms employed to indicate different forms or methods of taxation, and a clear understanding of the meaning of which is essential to any correct discussion of the subject, the following are the most important"
Direct and Indirect Taxes.—Taxes are generally characterized or classified as being either direct or indirect; but these terms, although in common use, are somewhat indefinite, owing to the inability of economists to agree as to their exact meaning; while in the United States this indefiniteness has been increased by the circumstance that its Supreme Federal Court has felt compelled by the language of the Federal Constitution to assign to the term "direct," as applicable to taxation, a "legal" rather than an economic definition.
In a general sense the term direct is applied to those taxes which are demanded from the particular persons whom it is intended or desired shall pay them; and indirect to those which are demanded from a person with the expectation and intention that he shall indemnify himself for payment of the same at the expense of some other person.[1] There is, furthermore, a marked distinction, founded on sound philosophy, between a direct and indirect tax, which, if concisely expressed, will constitute two unimpeachable definitions. Thus an indirect tax, whoever may first advance it, is paid voluntarily and primarily (in the sense of ultimately) by the consumer of the taxed article. On the other hand, a direct tax has always in it an element of compulsion; not necessarily on the person who advances the tax in block, but on the person who is compelled to use or consume the taxed property
- ↑ "In the assessment of indirect taxation, and such as is intended to bear upon specific classes of consumption, the object itself is alone attended to without regard to the party who may incur the charge. Sometimes a portion of the value of the specific product is demanded at the time of production—as in France, in respect to the article of salt. Sometimes the demand is made on entry, either into the State, as in the duties of import; or into the towns only, as in the duties of entry. Sometimes the tax is demanded of the consumer at the moment of transfer to him from the last producer—as in the case of the stamp duty, and the duty on theatrical tickets in France. Sometimes the Government requires a commodity to bear a particular mark, for which it makes a charge—as in the case of the assay mark on silver and a stamp on newspapers. Sometimes it monopolizes the manufacture of a particular article or the performance of a particular kind of business—as in the monopoly of tobacco and the postage of letters. Sometimes, instead of charging the commodity itself, it charges the payment of its price—as in the case of stamps on receipts and mercantile paper. All these are different ways of raising a revenue by indirect taxation; for the demand is not made on any person in particular, but attaches upon the product or article taxed."—M. Jean Say, Treatise on Political Economy, 1821.
