The tax, under the new system of
progression, will take fifty per cent. of this from him. At this
rate it is more advantageous to him to withdraw his capital and
consume the principal instead of the income. Then let him be
repaid. What! repaid! The State cannot be obliged to repay;
and, if it consents to redeem, it will do so in proportion to the
net income. Therefore a bond for twenty thousand francs will be
worth not more than ten thousand to the bondholder, because of
the tax, if he wishes to get it redeemed by the State: unless he
divides it into twenty lots, in which case it will return him
double the amount. Likewise an estate which rents for fifty
thousand francs, the tax taking two-thirds of the income, will
lose two- thirds of its value. But let the proprietor divide
this estate into a hundred lots and sell it at auction, and then,
the terror of the treasury no longer deterring purchasers, he can
get back his entire capital. So that, with the progressive
tax, real estate no longer follows the law of supply and demand
and is not valued according to the real income which it yields,
but according to the condition of the owner.
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