Publications of the American Economic Association (Paperback)

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: 1. Classic Antiquity. The earliest example of progressive taxation of which we have any knowledge is found in Athens. The facts are, however, not entirely beyond dispute. The direct tax (elfaopd) as levied in the time of Solon (B. C. 596) was a tax on property chiefly in the form of land, and was levied on the basis of the produce.1 The population was divided into four classes (ti/ioto ), as follows: 1. The Pentakosiomedimni, or those whose produce was valued at five hundred measures of dry products (medimnus) or liquid products (metrete). 2. The Knights (tWj)?), or those who produced three hundred measures and could support a horse. 3. The Zeugitae, or owners of a yoke of cattle, who produced two hundred (or, according to others, one hundred and fifty) measures. 4. The Thetes, who produced less than the above. Solon's design seems to have been to estimate the net produce of land at one-twelfth of the property. Reckoning a measure of produce as worth one drachma (about l71/2 cents), the property of a Pentakiosiomedimnus was assessed at a talent, i. e., twelve times 500 measures or 6,000 drachmas. According to the same calculation the value of a knight's property should have been fixed attwelve times 300 measures or 3,600 drachmas, and that of the next class at twelve times 150 measures or 1,800 drachmas. The progressive (or degressive) principle, however, was introduced by assessing the property of the knights at only 3,000 drachmas, and that of the Zeugitae at only 1,000 drachmas, while the lowest class was entirely exempted. In other words, instead of changing the rate of the tax, a modification was made in the assessable portion of the property. The highest class was assessed at the full valuation of the property; in the second class the appraised valuation ...