Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume XV.djvu/618

590 TAXES TAXIDERMY State taxation is usually laid for general state purposes only. The bulk of all state taxation is laid upon property by a periodical valuation. In some states these are supplemented by taxes on occupations or "privileges," on the fran- chises of corporations, &c. Taxes on those oc- cupations which are transient and those which are thought to require peculiar supervision and regulation are usual in all the states. Mu- nicipal or local taxation is commonly very much heavier than state taxation. It em- braces: 1, all taxes laid for the general pur- poses of counties, cities, boroughs, towns, and villages; and 2, those local taxes which are usually called assessments, and which are laid in special districts supposed to be peculiarly benefited by the construction of some public work, and by some rule of apportionment which proposes to charge each item of prop- erty within the district in proportion to the benefit it will receive. Taxes on this principle are often, though not always, laid for the opening and improvement of streets, for sew- erage and lighting in cities, for country drains, for levees and embankments, &c. The legisla- ture directs these to be provided for by general taxation of the municipality, or by local as- sessments, as it deems most just, or it confers upon the municipality within which the work is to be done a discretion in the premises. The methods of collecting taxes are various. Formerly in some countries the collection of the revenue was farmed out to contractors, but this led to enormous abuses and oppressions, and is no longer thought of. Customs duties are usually collected by requiring everything imported to pass through the hands of govern- ment officers, and the tax to be paid before the goods pass beyond their control. Excise taxes may be imposed in the form of stamps, and collected in a sale of the stamps, to be affixed either by the person taxed or by some official. Assessed taxes are mainly collected by a col- lector to whom a tax list and warrant is issued, and who is authorized to distrain goods, and perhaps to take the body of the person taxed. In the United States taxes on lands are gen- erally permitted to be enforced by a sale of the lands after other means of collection are exhausted. Much use is made of penalties under revenue laws, not only for the punish- ment of frauds and evasions, but also to com- pel the furnishing of lists, returns, &c. Many things are usually exempt from taxation. In- deed, any taxation is only a selection of sub- jects to be taxed, leaving everything else ex- empt ; but where special classes of persons, occupations, property, &c., are taxed, many exemptions are made. Public property is usu- ally exempt, and this includes court houses, public school buildings, asylums, &c. Houses of worship are also generally exempted, and sometimes the property of clergymen ; the idea being that this indirect encouragement to religious worship is for the good of the state> and also, perhaps, that as the community in general contribute in some form to the mainte- nance of churches, this exemption produces no considerable inequality. Special exemptions of individuals in any class taxed are usually unjust, and in the United States, except when made for a consideration, must be regarded as forbidden by constitutional principles. Taxa- tion and protection are regarded as reciprocal rights and duties. But protection is the con- sideration rather for the liability to taxation than for actual taxation ; as, if the government should see fit to collect all its taxes from lands, persons owning no lands and therefore not taxed, but liable to be taxed, would be equally entitled to protection with the land owner himself. In Great Britain and the United States it is a constitutional maxim that taxation and representation go together, and the people's representatives vote the taxes which the people are to pay. A violation of this maxim led to the American revolution. The exact force of the maxim is not well de- termined. It is not usually in doubt so far as the general taxes for the use of the state are concerned : these must be granted by the legis- lature; but in the case of local taxes some questions remain to be determined. There can be no doubt that local powers to tax are not inherent in the municipalities, but must be conferred by the state. Usually they are conferred with proper restrictions, and the municipalities are then left to exercise them at discretion. And it must be conceded that when the powers are to be employed for purely local purposes in which the commonwealth at large has no concern, this maxim would be disregarded if liberty in the premises were not left to the people directly interested ; and this in the United States is customary. See Leone Levi, " On Taxation, how it is Raised and how Expended" (London, 1860); Parieu, Traite des impots consideres sous le rapport historique, economique et politique en France et a Vetran- ger (5 vols., Paris, 1862-'4) ; Sir Morton Peto, " Taxation, its Levy and Expenditure, past and future " (New York, 1866) ; R. Dudley Bax- ter, " The Taxation of the United Kingdom " (London, 1869), and "Taxation and Local Gov- ernment" (1874); George J. Goschen, M. P., "Local Taxation" (London, 1872); Sargeant, " Taxation, Past, Present, and Future " (Lon- don, 1874) ; R. S. Blackwell, "Tax Titles" (3d ed., Boston, 1874); "Local Government and Taxation," edited by J. W. Probyn (" Cobden Club Essays," 1875) ; Francis Hilliard, " The Law of Taxation" (Boston, 1875); and Thom- as M. Cooley, " The Law of Taxation " (Chi- cago, 1876). TAXIDERMY (Gr. T&fa, arrangement, and depict, a skin), the art of preparing the skins of animals so that they retain their natural appearances, and also of arranging them in the forms and natural positions of the animals from which they are taken. This often in- cludes the preservation of the skeleton or parts of the skeleton, which is replaced as being the