Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 68, No. 421, November 1850Various
General
Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 68, No. 421, November 1850
Various
England -- Periodicals; Scotland -- Periodicals
We need not dwell on other evident objections which may be raised
to the continuance of the Income-Tax. These suggest themselves to
the minds of every one, and have been often pointed out and dwelt
on by public writers. The danger of maintaining a war tax in time
of peace--the eminently inquisitorial nature of the impost--and the
injustice of assessing professional men, authors, artists, &c.,
whose incomes depend solely on their health, at the same rate as
the possessors of accumulated property, are reasons sufficient to
condemn it. But the most monstrous injustice, to the already severely
burdened people of Great Britain, is the exemption of Ireland from its
operation. It is impossible to assign any valid reason for the policy
which dictated this odious partiality. Sir Robert Peel in 1842 could
not find any better excuse than the following: "When I am proposing a
tax, limited in duration, in the first instance, to a period of three
years, and when the amount of that tax does not exceed three per cent,
I must of course consider, with reference to public interests, whether
it be desirable to apply that tax to Ireland. I must bear in mind,
that it is a tax to which Ireland was not subject during the period of
the war; that it is a tax for the levy of which no machinery exists
in Ireland--_Ireland has no assessed taxes_--the machinery there is
wanting, and I should have to devise new machinery for a country to
which the tax has never been applied."
Most rare and convincing logic! Because Ireland on a former occasion
was not taxed, she is not to be taxed now; because she pays no assessed
taxes, her income also is to be exempted from contribution! Why, these
were, of all others the very strongest arguments for laying it on; and
most contemptible indeed was the pusillanimity of the representatives
of English and Scottish constituencies, who did not on that occasion
peremptorily demand the enforcement of equal burdens. What a premium to
agitation is here held out! The Irishman with a yearly revenue of £150
a-year, pays no assessed taxes--is cleared from some excise duties--and
enjoys an immunity from Income-Tax. The people of England and Scotland
are kind enough to save him all these charges, in grateful recognition,
doubtless, of his exceeding docility, and proverbial attachment to the
Constitution. As to the allegation of want of ready-made machinery, the
answer was plain--Make it. Nine years have gone by, and yet it is not
made, and there is no proposal for making it; and it remains to be seen
whether the fourth attempt at imposition will be as grossly partial
is the others. If this tax is again renewed, there can be henceforth
no escape from it. It matters not whether the term of the new lease
be seven, or five, or three years--the tax itself will be immortal,
and surely we shall not be insulted this time with a plea of deficient
machinery.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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