Such transactions may be taxed indirectly by means either of stamp-duties, or of duties upon registration, and those duties either may or may not be proportioned to the value of the subject which is transferred.
In Great Britain the stamp-duties are higher or lower, not so much according to the value of the property transferred (an eighteenpenny or half-crown stamp being sufficient upon a bond for the largest sum of money) as according to the nature of the deed.The highest do not exceed six pounds upon every sheet of paper or skin of parchment, and these high duties fall chiefly upon grants from the crown, and upon certain law proceedings, without any regard to the value of the subject.There are in Great Britain no duties on the registration of deeds or writings, except the fees of the officers who keep the register, and these are seldom more than a reasonable recompense for their labour.
The crown derives no revenue from them.
In Holland there are both stamp-duties and duties upon registration, which in some cases are, and in some are not, proportioned to the value of the property transferred.All testaments must be written upon stamped paper of which the price is proportioned to the property disposed of, so that there are stamps which cost from threepence, or three stivers a sheet, to three hundred florins, equal to about twenty-seven pounds ten shillings of our money.If the stamp is of an inferior price to what the testator ought to have made use of, his succession is confiscated.This is over and above all their other taxes on succession.Except bills of exchange, and some other mercantile bills, all other deeds, bonds, and contracts are subject to a stamp-duty.This duty, however, does not rise in proportion to the value of the subject.All sales of land and of houses, and all mortgages upon either, must be registered, and, upon registration, pay a duty to the state of two and a half per cent upon the amount of the price or of the mortgage.This duty is extended to the sale of all ships and vessels of more than two tons burden, whether decked or undecked.These, it seems, are considered as a sort of houses upon the water.The sale of movables, when it is ordered by a court of justice, is subject to the like duty of two and a half per cent.
In France there are both stamp-duties and duties upon registration.The former are considered as a branch of the aides or excise, and in the provinces where those duties take place are levied by the excise officers.The latter are considered as a branch of the domain of the crown, and are levied by a different set of officers.
Those modes of taxation, by stamp-duties and by duties upon registration, are of very modern invention.In the course of little more than a century, however, stamp-duties have, in Europe, become almost universal, and duties upon registration extremely common.There is no art which one government sooner learns of another than that of draining money from the pockets of the people.
Taxes upon the transference of property from the dead to the living fall finally as well as immediately upon the person to whom the property is transferred.Taxes upon the sale of land fall altogether upon the seller.The seller is almost always under the necessity of selling, and must, therefore, take such a price as he can get.The buyer is scarce ever under the necessity of buying, and will, therefore, only give such a price as he likes.He considers what the land will cost him in tax and price together.The more he is obliged to pay in the way of tax, the less he will be disposed to give in the way of price.Such taxes, therefore, fall almost always upon a necessitous person, and must, therefore, be frequently very cruel and oppressive.Taxes upon the sale of new-built houses, where the building is sold without the ground, fall generally upon the buyer, because the builder must generally have his profit, otherwise he must give up the trade.If he advances the tax, therefore, the buyer must generally repay it to him.Taxes upon the sale of old houses, for the same reason as those upon the sale of land, fall generally upon the seller, whom in most cases either conveniency or necessity obliges to sell.The number of new-built houses that are annually brought to market is more or less regulated by the demand.Unless the demand is such as to afford the builder his profit, after paying all expenses, he will build no more houses.
The number of old houses which happen at any time to come to market is regulated by accidents of which the greater part have no relation to the demand.Two or three great bankruptcies in a mercantile town will bring many houses to sale which must be sold for what can be got for them.Taxes upon the sale of ground-rents fall altogether upon the seller, for the same reason as those upon the sale of land.Stamp-duties, and duties upon the registration of bonds and contracts for borrowed money, fall altogether upon the borrower, and, in fact, are always paid by him.Duties of the same kind upon law proceedings fall upon the suitors.They reduce to both the capital value of the subject in dispute.The more it costs to acquire any property, the less must be the net value of it when acquired.
All taxes upon the transference of property of every kind, so far as they diminish the capital value of that property, tend to diminish the funds destined for the maintenance of productive labour.They are all more or less unthrifty taxes that increase the revenue of the sovereign, which seldom maintains any but unproductive labourers, at the expense of the capital of the people, which maintains none but productive.
Such taxes, even when they are proportioned to the value of the property transferred, are still unequal, the frequency of transference not being always equal in property of equal value.