An inheritance tax is collected on estates as they pass into the possession of heirs. Practically all states have such a tax, though less than a generation ago the right of the state to share in the estates of its citizens was very generally regarded with disfavor. Like the income tax, the inheritance tax is usually confined to the estates of the well-to-do and the rich, and almost always bears a progressive rate. Unlike an income tax, however, an inheritance tax is paid from capital and not from income. The principle involved in taxing estates is of great social importance. Often a deceased has no near heirs, none, let us say, nearer than a second or third cousin. Why, in the absence of a will, should these distant relatives have a greater interest in the estate than the neighborhood where the deceased had spent his whole life, or the business men with whom he had been associated for years? On what common-sense ground can a distantly related person, one perhaps whom the deceased had never known, claim to inherit property? Both questions were revolutionary a generation ago. They are less so now. Another generation may see them answered in the interest of the state.

Other Kinds Of Taxes

The forms of taxation just noticed do not by any means exhaust the list, though in many respects they are the most important. Others that might have been discussed are tariff duties, excise taxes, taxes on transactions, corporation taxes, business taxes, license taxes, and poll taxes. Each has its own problems of administration; each serves a particular purpose; but all at bottom involve the same general principles which we have already noted.