The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 103, May, 1866, page 179 by Various Authors
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the aggregate, if we repeal these taxes? The answer is a simple one. The Commission estimate our imports at $400,000,000, and our duties now average forty-seven per cent. Should this continue, we should draw from this source alone $188,000,000. There is also the revenue from public lands and miscellaneous sources, which the Secretary and the Revenue Commission both rate at $21,000,000, making an aggregate of $209,000,000; although the Commission, to guard against the effects of any change in the tariff, modestly rate these items at only $151,000,000.
To these they add for excise, viz.:--
From five cents per pound on Cotton, $40,000,000 One dollar per gallon on Spirits, 40,000,000 Duties on Tobacco, 18,000,000 Malt Liquors at one dollar only per barrel, 5,000,000 Twenty cents per gallon on Refined Petroleum, 3,000,000 From Spirits of Turpentine and Rosin, 2,000,000 ----------- $108,000,000
Licenses, $15,000,000 Stamps, 20,000,000 Banks, 15,000,000 Salaries, Sales, and Successions, 9,000,000 ----------- $59,000,000
They thus provide a revenue of $318,000,000, or $30,000,000 more than that required by the Secretary,--a surplus which, with the annual excess of duties, to say nothing of the future growth of revenue, would extinguish our debt in little more than thirty years. But to guard against all contingencies, they propose to levy on incomes taxes to the amount of $40,000,000; and on the gross receipts of railways, bridges, canals, and stages, $9,000,000. These change the aggregate to $367,000,000; an excess of $81,000,000 over the estimate of our requirements by the Secretary.
* * * * *
The Commission give us the Budget of France in the following summary, viz.:--
Direct Taxes, $63,072,280 Registry Stamps and Public Domains, 81,537,833 Forests, 8,051,300 Customs and Duties on Salt, 29,485,000 Indirect Taxes, 115,600,400 Post-Office, 14,482,000 Sundry Revenues, 26,441,989 Miscellaneous, 11,736,360 ----------- Total, $350,407,212
Also, the revenues of Great Bri