A Research of the tax farming in 17th century England

“Steuerstaat”有两个鲜明的特点：一是收入由税收组成，二是议会拥有税收的许可权。议会的至高无上地位是由“资产阶级”革命确立的。但从专制主义开始，税收就成了国王的收入。政府委托私人商人和公共行政机构来征收税收的税收务农，在收入已经由税收组成但统治权尚未确立的专制主义中找到了最合适的条件。在英国，从复辟时期（1660年）到光荣革命时期（1688年），税收务农盛行。因为国王的封建特权收入在清教革命中消失了。三种间接税——关税、消费税、煤气税——变成了普通税收。这三种间接税收入都受“国王应该过自己的生活”原则的控制，但不受议会的控制。议会无法控制的三种间接税的征收交给了支付租金的私人商人。税农配备了有效的官僚机构，不仅大力征收地租，而且大力征收“盈余”，这使他们获利。此外。他们以自己征收的税收作为担保，向政府提供了大笔贷款。因此，可以说，税农制度的历史作用有两个方面：一是它为税收征管提供了有效的组织，二是它在税收保障上提供了公共信用。在光荣革命之前，英国所有的税农都被废除，代之以直接征收。但这两项成就——有效的税收机制和大规模公共贷款的做法——被新的议会政府继承了。少

"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