The Fee System in the United States Volume 1 (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: emment telegraph, or railroads are supposed to be excluded from the category called fees. From what has already been said, it is perfectly evident that no hard and fast line can be drawn between essential state institutions and others. The institutions which may be regarded as absolutely essential at one time, may not be so regarded at another; because the public interest or public purpose in the institution may be strong at one time and then gradually disappear. Thus Wagner has formulated his theory in such a way as to include under this heading, not only payments for services of institutions which are maintained for the realization of essential state purposes, but also of institutions for the promotion of civilization and general public welfare. He sees fit, however, to exclude state railroads and other similar activities from this class; and designates the government receipts from these sources as income frorrj industrial pursuits.1 He thus tries to find a line of cleavage between public business and industrial undertakings, a line which it is impossible to draw; because the relation of the state to the various institutions is constantly changing. " The real consideration in the classification of public revenues, is not so much conditions affecting the action of the government or the kinds of business conducted by the government, as the economic relations existing between the individual and the government. "3 It is the relation of the special benefit which the public service yields, to the price paid for such benefit, which determines whether the amount paid is a fee, a price, or a tax. Q. METHOD OF COLLECTING FEES. Fees may be collected either directly or indirectly. They are collected directly by officials appointed for the purpose. Very often the officials receive t...