In the third place, the reduction, and finally the abolition, of taxes on improvements and personal property would be especially beneficial to the poorer and middle classes because they now pay a disproportionate share of these charges. Lower taxes on dwellings would mean lower rents for all persons who did not own their homes, and lower taxes for all owners whose residence values were unusually large relatively to their land values. And the tendency to lower rents on dwellings would be reinforced by the lower cost of building materials resulting, as noted above, from the increased supply and the lower tax on this form of personal property. Lower taxes on that species of personal property which consists of consumers' goods, such as household furniture and wearing apparel, would lessen the present inequity of taxation because this class of goods is reached to a much greater extent in the case of the poor than in the case of the rich. It is not easy to conceal or to undervalue a relatively small number of simple and standard articles; but diamonds, costly furniture, and luxurious wardrobes can be either hidden, or certified to the assessor at a low valuation. As for those forms of personal property which are of the nature of capital and other profit producing goods, such as machinery and tools of all kinds, productive animals, money, mortgages, securities, the stocks of goods held by manufacturers and merchants, and likewise buildings which are used for productive purposes,--the taxes on all these kinds of property are for the most part shifted to the consumer. The latter ultimately pays the tax in the form of higher prices for food, clothing, shelter, and the other necessaries and comforts of life.[106] Now a tax on consumption is notoriously unfair to the poorer and middle classes because it affects a greater portion of their total expenditures, and takes a larger per cent. of their income than in the case of the rich. Hence the removal of the taxes specified in this paragraph would be at once the abolition of a fiscal injustice, and a considerable assistance to the less fortunate classes. All those landowners who occupied rented dwellings would benefit by the reduction in house rent, and all landowners without exception would reap some advantage from the reduction or abolition of the taxes on consumers' goods and on the various forms of producers' goods. It is not improbable that a considerable proportion of them would gain as much in these respects as they would lose in the capacity of landowners.