on the
rental.
But the 3 per cent. on professional profits and salaries is arbitrarily
fixed for each village, or group of villages, and the Moukhtars levy the
personal contributions of each tax-payer as they think fit.
In this process there is considerable oppression of the poorer
taxpayers, and also loss of revenue to the State. Both would be
obviated, or at all events mitigated, by entrusting the assessment to
Government officers, and by a more careful and exact registration of
property, and of profits from trades and professions. The revenue from
the licence tax in towns must largely increase in the future.
As a rule, the district officers endeavour to recover the verghis before
tax-payers are subjected to the exactions of the tithe-farmers for
payment of the dimes and other imposts. In some of the Turkish vilayets,
the Government have gone so far as to forbid the local tribunals from
condemning the tax-payers to pay the claims of third parties until they
have assurance that the verghis have been paid.
The average yield of the verghis tax in the last five years was
3,521,083 piastres, or 30,354 pounds per annum. The account of the last
year of the series (1877-78) showed a revenue of 3,193,850 piastres, or
27,535 pounds. The demand for the current year is 3,380,246 piastres, of
which only 518,545 piastres have been recovered up to the present time.
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