THE INCIDENCE OF TAXATION 287

deduction of the tax, sufficed to cover the reduced risks, the
imposition of the tax would be no reason for any rise of
insurance premiums.
The tendencies to the transference of the burden of
taxation from class to class in the community, which have
called for attention in what precedes, would partly disappear
if a system of taxation were made up of such taxes, on the
various classes of revenue, as imposed equal burdens on all
classes. Thus the equal taxation of rent and interest would
destroy the advantage of holding property yielding rent
rather than property yielding interest, or the contrary. The
transfer of part of the burden of taxes on wages to consumers
not belonging to wage-receiving classes, that is to say, to
those whose revenues are made up of rents and interest and
profits, would be checked if these classes were so burdened
by taxation imposed on them that higher prices for the
products of labour led to a serious reduction of demand.
Such a reduction would throw back the burden on labour
in the form of lack of employment, that is, a diminished
opportunity to earn wages. In the degree in which taxes, on
wages, interest, and profits, reduced the supply of labour, of
capital and of willingness to take risks and responsibility,
the burden of taxation would be thrown upon those whose
revenues are derived from agents of production the supply
of which was unaffected by taxation of the revenues yielded
by them. This practically means that, as between the
three classes of revenue named, readjustment of burden
might be checked if the burden on each were such as to
produce the appropriate effect on the supply of the productive
agents concerned in yielding these revenues. As between
this group and receivers of pure rents, the sources of which
continued unchanged in supply in spite of the taxation of
the rents, a shifting of burdens would be possible in spite of
adjustment of the taxation of the different classes of revenue.
For example, land remaining in undiminished supply, and
labour and capital being supposed checked in supply as a
result of taxation, the division of the joint product would be
more in favour of owners of capital and labour, less to the
advantage of owners of land. To produce this result, the