APPENDIX

611

upon bearer securities which is based upon their issuance. The only
real sales-tax on securities in Great Britain is a trifling and unimportant
 documentary stamp tax imposed upon stock-brokers’ “contract
notes,” (or “confirmations” as we would term them in New York).
The French stock sales tax (droit de timbre sur les operations de
Bourse) is imposed upon both purchases and sales of all French securities
 on a French stock exchange; it applies to cash and term bargains
alike, but at half rates to continuations of term bargains. French
and foreign securities are taxed alike, except that French rentes enjoy
in all cases specially low rates.
Similarly, in Germany, the “Stock Exchange turnover tax” (umsatzsteuer)
 is imposed upon all sales or purchases of securities upon
the German stock exchanges; it comprises a complex schedule of
rates varying according to the class of securities involved, and to
the classes of brokers and dealers effecting the given sales or purchases.

In Holland, the similar tax applies to both the purchase and sale
»f both stocks and bonds; it applies, however, only to public customers
 who are the ultimate buyers and sellers of securities, and not
to sales or purchases by members of the Amsterdam Stock Exchange.
In Italy, in order to be legally recorded, every security contract
must involve the exchange of special slips (fissati bollati) which are
subject to government tax. This tax varies in rate according to the
term of the contract, and according to the occupation of the contracting
 parties; it is halved when the transaction has been in Italian
government issues, or in those guaranteed by the Italian State.
In Austria the “securities turnover tax (effcktenumsatzsteuer)
applies in general only to transactions on the Stock Exchange, and
to those effected off the Exchange through the intermediation of a
professional dealer in securities. Ordinarily, the tax is paid only by
the seller, but when the transaction is between stock dealers and nondealers,
 the former must pay; also, in transactions concluded on the
Stock Exchange and settled through the Wiener Giro-und Kassenverein,
 each party pays half the tax. Transactions in both bonds and
shares are taxed, with a half-rate upon bonds of the Republic of
Austria or its provinces, districts, and municipalities and upon a few
other securities.
Professor E. R. A. Seligman, probably America’s greatest student
of the economic effects of taxation, has stated in “Incidence of Taxation”
 (New York, i921, pp. 381-385):
“Where the net result of a tax on transactions is a decrease in the
-ransactions, the real burden may be regarded as falling on neither