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328 [vol. 5, p. 468. “Discours sur l’impôt des boissons.” 12 December 1849. n.p.] Citizen Representatives, I wanted to discuss the question of the tax on wines and spirits as it appears to me to exist in the understandings of all of you, that is to say, from the point of view of financial and political necessity. I thought, in effect, that necessity was the only reason invoked to support the retention of this tax; I believed that in your eyes it brought together all the features by which economic science teaches us to recognize bad taxes. I believed that it had been accepted that this tax is unjust and inequitable and that its collection involved extremely tedious and annoying formalities. However, since the reproaches directed against this tax by all statesmen since its inception are now being disputed, I will say a few quick words about it. First of all, we claim that the tax is unjust and base our claim on the following : Here are parcels of land that are side by side and subject to a land tax, a direct tax. These parcels are classified and compared with each other and taxed in accordance with their value. Subsequently, each person may  16  Discourse on the Tax on Wines and Spirits1,2 1. (Paillottet’s note) This unprepared talk was delivered to the Legislative Assembly on 12 December 1849. 2. Inherited from the First Empire, taxes on alcoholic beverages had three components : 1. A “circulation” duty 2. A retail tax 3. An “entrance duty,” when the drink was introduced into a city of more than four thousand inhabitants. These taxes were very unpopular and were abolished in May 1849 by the Assembly; however, in December the minister of finance proposed to reestablish them as part of an attempt to balance the budget. The Tax on Wines and Spirits 329 grow anything he wants on them; some grow wheat, others pasture, yet others carnations and roses, and others vines. Well then, of all these products, there is one and only one that, once it has entered into circulation, is subject to a tax that yields 106 million to the treasury. All the other agricultural products are free from this tax. It might be said that the tax is useful and necessary, and this is not the subject with which I wish to deal, but it cannot be said that it is not unjust from the owner’s point of view. It is true that it is said that the tax does not fall on the producer. I will examine this later. We then say that the tax is badly distributed. In fact, I was very surprised that this has been disputed, since . . . (interruption ) A member on the right: Speak a little louder! The president: Will the Assembly be silent please? M. F. Bastiat: I am even ready to abandon this argument in the interest of speed. Various voices: Speak! Speak! M. F. Bastiat: The matter seems to me to be so clear, it is so obvious that the tax is badly distributed that, truly, it is embarrassing to demonstrate this. When we see, for example, that a man who, in an orgy, drinks six francs’ worth of champagne pays the same tax as a worker who needs to restore his strength for work and drinks six sous’ worth of ordinary wine, it is impossible to say that there is no inequality, no monstrousness in the distribution of the tax on wines and spirits. (Hear! Hear!) Calculus has almost been used to establish that the tax is negligible, that these are fractions of a centime and ought not to be taken into account. In this way, a class of citizens has been burdened with 106 million of an iniquitous tax by being told: “This is nothing. You should consider yourselves fortunate !” The men who invoke this argument ought to be telling you: “We are operating such and such an industry, and we are so convinced that the tax, by being split up, cannot be felt by the consumer on whom it falls that we are subjecting ourselves to the indirect tax and to the “exercise”3 in the case of the industry we are involved with. The day when these men come to the rostrum to say this, I will say: “They are sincere in their defense of the tax on wines and spirits.” 3. The “exercise” was a control carried out by the tax officials at...

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