form the annual value at which the building should be assessed to the tax.
As incomes below a certain amount ought to be exempt from income-tax, so ought houses below a certain value from house-tax, on the universal principle of sparing from all taxation the absolute necessaries of healthful existence. In order that the occupiers of lodgings, as well as of houses, might benefit, as in justice they ought, by this exemption, it might be optional with the owners to have every portion of a house which is occupied by a separate tenant valued and assessed separately.
Chapter III. Of Taxes On Commodities, Or Indirect Taxes.
§ 1. A Tax on all commodities would fall on Profits.
By taxes on commodities are commonly meant those which are levied either on the producers, or on the carriers or dealers who intervene between them and the final purchasers for consumption; the phrase being, by custom, confined to indirect taxes—those which are advanced by one person, to be, as is expected and intended, reimbursed by another.
Taxes on commodities are either on production