ct of the new fiscal
regime.--Increased receipts of the public treasury.--Lighter
burdens of the taxpayer.--Change in the condition of the
small taxpayer.

This infraction of the principle of distributive justice is in favor
of the poor. Through the almost complete exemption of those who have no
property the burden of direct taxation falls almost entirely on those
who own property. If they are manufacturers, or in commerce, they
support still another burden, that of the license tax, which is a
supplementary impost proportioned to their probable gains.[3234]
Finally, to all these annual and extra taxes, levied on the probable or
certain income derived from invested or floating capital, the exchequer
adds an eventual tax on capital itself, consisting of the mutation
tax, assessed on property every time it changes hands through gift,
inheritance or by contract, obtaining its title under free donation
or by sale, and which tax, aggravated by the timbre,[3235] is
enormous[3236] since, in most cases, it takes 5, 7, 9, and up to 10
1/2 % on the capital transmitted, that is to say, in the case of
real-estate, 2, 3 and even 4 years' income from it. Thus, in the first
shearing of the sheep the exchequer cuts deep, as deep as possible; but
it has sheared only the sheep whose fleece is more or less ample; its
scissors have scarcely touched the others, much more numerous, whose
wool, short, thin and scant, is maintained only by day-wages, the petty
gains of manual labor.--Compensation is to come when the exchequer,
resuming its scissors, shears the second time: it is the indirect tax
which, although properly levied and properly collected, is, in its
nature, more burdensome for the poor than for the rich and well-off.

Through this tax, and through to the previous action of customs-duties,
tolls, octrois or monopolies, the State collects a certain percentage
on the price of various kinds of merchandise sold. In this way it
participates in trade and commerce and itself becomes a merchant.
It knows, therefore, like all able merchants, that, to obtain large
profits, it must sell large quantities, that it must have a very large
body of customers, that the largest body is that which ensures to it and
embraces all its subjects, in short, that its customers must consist
not only of the rich, who number merely tens of thousands, not only the
well-to-do, who number merely hundreds of thousands, but likewise the
poor and the h