Civil War and Reconstruction in AlabamaFleming, Walter L. (Walter Lynwood)
History
Civil War and Reconstruction in Alabama
Fleming, Walter L. (Walter Lynwood)
Alabama -- History -- Civil War, 1861-1865; Reconstruction (U.S. history, 1865-1877) -- Alabama
By this act $9,500,000 in currency was raised in Alabama. Alabama, with
Georgia and North Carolina, furnished two-thirds of the tax-in-kind.
Though at first there was some objection to the tax-in-kind because it
bore entirely on the agricultural classes, yet it was a just tax so far as
the large planters were concerned, since the depreciated money had acted
as a tax on the wage-earners and salaried classes, who had also some state
tax to pay. The tax-in-kind fell heavily upon the families of small
farmers in the white counties, who had no negro labor and who produced no
more than the barest necessaries of life. To collect the tax-in-kind
required an army of tithe gatherers and afforded fine opportunities of
escape from military service. The state was divided into districts for the
collection of all Confederate taxes, with a state collector at the head.
The collection districts were usually counties, following the state
division into taxing districts. In 1864 the tobacco tithe was collected by
treasury agents and not by the quartermaster's department, which had
formerly collected it.[437] The tax of April 24, 1863, was renewed on
February 17, 1864, and some additional taxes laid as follows:--
Real estate and personal property 5%
Gold and silver ware, jewellery 10%
Coin 5%
Credits 5%
Profits on liquors, produce, groceries, and dry goods 10%
On June 10, 1864, an additional tax of 20 per cent of the tax for 1864 was
laid, payable only in Confederate treasury notes of the new issue. Four
days later an additional tax[438] was levied as follows:--
Real estate and personal property and coin 5%
Gold and silver ware 10%
Profits on liquors, produce, groceries, and dry goods 30%
Treasury notes of old issue (after January, 1865) 100%
The taxes during the war, state and Confederate, were in all five to ten
times those levied before the war. Never were taxes paid more willingly by
most of the people,[439] though at first there was opposition to them. It
is probable that the authorities did not, in 1861 and 1862, give
sufficient consideration to the fact that conditions were much changed,
and that in view of the war the people would willingly have paid taxes
that they would have rebelled against in times of peace.
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