for its use but for its costliness, cheapness is no recommendation.
§ 3. Practical rules for indirect taxation.
In order to reduce as much as possible the inconveniences, and increase the advantages, incident to taxes on commodities, the following are the practical rules which suggest themselves: 1. To raise as large a revenue as conveniently may be, from those classes of luxuries which have most connection with vanity, and least with positive enjoyment; such as the more costly qualities of all kinds of personal equipment and ornament. But with regard to horses and carriages, as there are many persons to whom, from health or constitution, these are not so much luxuries as necessaries, the tax paid by those who have but one riding-horse, or but one carriage, especially of the cheaper descriptions, should be low; while taxation should rise very rapidly with the number of horses and carriages, and with their costliness. 2. Whenever possible, to demand the tax, not from the producer, but directly from the consumer, since, when levied on the producer, it raises the price always by more, and often by much more, than the mere amount of the tax. 3. But as the only indirect taxes which yield a large revenue are those which fall on articles of universal or very general consumption, and as it is therefore necessary to have some taxes on real luxuries, that is, on things which afford pleasure in themselves, and are valued on that account rather than for their cost, these taxes should, if possible, be so adjusted as to fall with the same proportional weight on small, on moderate, and on large incomes. This is not an easy matter; since the things which are the subjects of the more productive taxes are in proportion more largely consumed by the poorer members of the community than by the rich. Tea, coffee, sugar, tobacco, fermented drinks, can hardly be so taxed that the poor shall not bear more than their due share