ABSTRACT
In McCulloch's discussions this largely comprised income and property taxes. The income tax, to which McCulloch devoted a great deal of attention, unlike Ricardo who virtually neglected it completely,5
had a number of prima facie advantages. It did not involve automatic regression as did taxes on goods; it did not involve distortion of the allocation of capital and enterprise (it did involve distortion of the choice between income and leisure but this was largely outside McCulloch's frame of reference); it was economical to collect; it did not tempt shopkeepers to adulterate their products nor give rise to smuggling; and it did not, if fairly applied, cause any change in relative prices. <* These were certainly advantages which appealed to McCulloch ; and for a while he seems to have considered them sufficiently strong to justify an income tax. ? But against them had to be set the
1 Taxation, 1845, pp. 132-4; ibid., 1863, pp. 148-9. However, McCulloch followed Smith closely in opposing licenses for consumption of various goods as inconvenient and regressive - Taxation, 1845, p. 253.
