A Research of the tax farming in 17th century England

Research Project

Project/Area Number	01530048
Research Category	Grant-in-Aid for General Scientific Research (C)
Allocation Type	Single-year Grants
Research Field	Economic history
Research Institution	Kumamoto University of Commerce
Principal Investigator	SAKAI Shigeki Kumamoto University of Commerce, Faculty of Econonics, Professor, 経済学部, 教授 (10103136)
Project Period (FY)	1989
Project Status	Completed (Fiscal Year 1989)
Budget Amount *help	¥1,100,000 (Direct Cost: ¥1,100,000) Fiscal Year 1989: ¥1,100,000 (Direct Cost: ¥1,100,000)
Keywords	Steuerstaat / King Should line of his own' / tax-farming / customs / excise / hearth-tax / Restoration / Glorious Revolution
Research Abstract	"Steuerstaat' has two distinctive features: the one is that the revenue consists of the taxes, and the other is that the parliament has the right of consent of the taxation. The supremacy of the parliament is established by the 'bourgeois' revolution. But the tax has become the revenue of the king since th beginning of abusolutism. The tax-farming which the government trusts the private merchants with the public administration to collect the tax found the most suitable condition in the abusolutism in which the revenue had already consisted of the tax but the supremacy had not yet established. In England the tax-farming prevailed in the period from the Restoration(1660) to the Glorious Revolution(1688). Since the feudal and prerogative income of the king had vanished in the Puritan Revolution. the three indirect taxes--customes, excise, hearth tax --became the ordinary revenue instead. These three indirect-tax revenues were under the control of the principle 'The King should live of his … More own' but beyond the control of the parliament. The collection of three indirect-taxes which were beyond the control the parliament was trusted to the private merchants who paid the rent. The tax-farmers equipped the effective and bureaucratic machinery and collected vigorously not only the rent but also 'surplus' which made their profits. In addition. they made the large loan, which was on the security of the tax which was collected by themselves, to the government. Therefore, it might be said that the historical role of the tax- farming was the following two: the one was that it equipped the effective organization of the tax- collection, and the other was that it provided the public credit on the security of the tax. In England all of the tax-farmings were abolished and replaced with the direct collection before the Glorious Revolution. But the two achievements--the effective tax-collecting machinery and the practice of the large public loan--were inherited by the new parliamentary government. Less