CHAPTER I THE INCOME TAX IN THE AMERICAN COLONIES IN taking up the discussion of the income tax in the United States, it is doubly important to treat it from the historical point of view. For in the first place, not only is it true that one generation is prone easily to forget the experiences of its predecessor, but in the second place the correct interpretation of certain important clauses in the American constitution which have a vital bearing upon our topic depends in very large measure upon the historical setting, and upon the mental attitude of the fathers of the constitution to the actual conditions of the time. It is for both of these reasons that a discussion of colonial conditions becomes more than ordinarily important. Our endeavor in this initial chapter will be to compare the colonial taxes with their analogues past and present in the American commonwealths, and to attempt to ascertain how far these colonial imposts deserve the name of income tax.1 § 1. The Beginnings The first general tax law in the American colonies, with the exception of the early poll tax in Virginia,2 was the law of 1634 1 This chapter was published fifteen years ago in the Political Science Quarterly, vol. x, no. 2 (June, 1895). It was originally written, with the exception of a few paragraphs, in 1893, and was intended to form a part of a general work on the income tax, the appearance of which has been delayed until now. At the request of Mr. Clarence A. Seward, one of the counsel in the income-tax cases of 1895, a portion of this essay was submitted to him in manuscript form, and was utilized in the preparation of the monograph presented by him in the original hearing as a supplementary brief. The majority of the quotations in that monograph are taken from the manuscript essay. 2 For the early Virginian legislation, see Ripley, Financial History of Virginia, pp. 17-24 (Columbia University Studies in History, Economics and Public Law, vol. iv, no. 1). in Massachusetts Bay. This provided for the assessment of each man "according to his estate and with consideration of all other his abilityes whatsoever." It is probable that the measure of this ability was to be found in property; for, although the law itself does not further explain the term, the matter is elucidated in a provision of the next year, that "all men shall be rated for their whole abilitie, wheresoever it lies." This seems to imply only visible property; for such property alone is susceptible of a situs. It was not until seven years later that " ability" was defined to include something more than mere property. This, however, occurred not in Massachusetts Bay, but in the colony of New Plymouth. In 1643 assessors were appointed to rate all the inhabitants of that colony "according to their estates or faculties, that is, according to goods lands improoued faculties and 'sonall abilities." This law is noteworthy for a double reason. It is the first to use the term "faculty," and it distinguishes faculty and personal ability from visible property. But although it provides for a faculty tax, it does not tell us exactly how to measure this faculty. This was reserved for the more comprehensive law enacted three years later by the Court of Assistants of the Massachusetts Bay Company. The court order of 1646 provides not only for the assessment of personal and real estates, but distinctly mentions "laborers, artificers and handicraftsmen" as subject to taxation, and then goes on to say: "And for all such persons as by advantage of their arts and trades are more enabled to help bear the public charges than the common laborers and workmen, as butchers, bakers, brewers, victuallers, smiths, carpenters, taylors, shoemakers, joyners, barbers, millers and masons, with all other manual persons and artists, such are to be rated for returns and gains, proportionable unto other men for the produce of their estates." 1 Colonial Records of Massachusetts Bay (Shurtleff's ed., 1853), i, p. 120. 2 Ibid., p. 166. 3 Records of the Colony of New Plymouth: Laws 1623-1682 (Pulsifer's ed.), xi, p. 42. 4 Colonial Records of Massachusetts Bay, ii, p. 173. Cf. ii, p. 213, and iii, p. 88. |