expediency depend largely
on their administration. Principle and practice in this, as in most
affairs, may go far apart. The administration of taxation should
be economical, certain, and uniform. Some laws are more easily and
economically executed than others. The time of collection should be as
convenient as possible for the citizen, and the mode of payment should
be the most simple. The utmost certainty is desirable as to the time,
method of payment, and amount. Taxation that, in its principle, is
variable, shifting, or dependent on personal whim and favoritism,
is despotism. But the greatest evils, in practice, result from the
failures in assessment. The assessment of taxes has to be intrusted
to men with fallible judgment, imperfect knowledge, and selfish
interests. The assessor is as near a despot as any agent of popular
government to-day. Not infrequently men of proved incapacity in every
private business they have attempted are, for partizan or corrupt
reasons, selected as assessors, and are given the power of passing
judgment on the value of millions of dollars' worth of property. Under
the circumstances, evils are to be expected, and they occur. The small
owner often is crushed under the unequal assessment while the large
owner comes lightly off. Political friends are favored, political foes
are made to suffer. Even the most honest and capable of assessors find
in the imperfections of the tax laws[6] an insuperable obstacle to
even-handed justice.

Sec. 14. #Shifting and incidence.# The person paying a tax into the
public treasury is not always the one whose income is reduced in
the long run. This is most clearly seen in the case of taxes paid by
middlemen. In most cases the final and regular burden of the tax is
distributed over a number of incomes. The passing on of the burden is
called the _shifting_ of the tax; the final location of the burden is
called the _incidence_ of the tax. The lawmaker cannot tell exactly
where the weight will fall. The principles of value give some guidance
in the inquiry, but the workings of the principle are difficult to
follow.

Consider a situation where certain taxes have been for some time
levied. They have become a part of the general adjustment of prices.
If paid by any one in business they may be looked upon as a deduction
from the gross proceeds or product of the business, prior to cost, or
as a part of cost.[7] In either case every one choosing that business
does so i