JB/109/265/001

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1827. July 20.
Collectanea
Law Taxes
3

The next tax on justice which we would
point out for correction, is the poll-tax on agents.
Every agent is liable to payment of an annual stamp
duty of £12; and this, whether his business shall yield
some thousands a year, or less than £100. We lately
reported a trial in Exchequer, where a writer to the
signet was subjected in the statutory penalties for
acting as an agent in the Court of Session; and
the same total of agency proved was in two cases
only. From the aspect of these cases, as appeared on
the trial, it is extremely doubtful if all the agent's
professional charges on them both amounts to the tax;
and it is more than probable that he expended in
payments to the fee fund and clerks more than the
amount of the tax, and never received one farthing
of his outlay in that way, or in fees to counsel &c.
from poor clients, ruined perhaps before their causes
could pass through the ordeal of adjusting and closing
the second, before being ever heard, after standing
a year in the roll for debate. This tax is exacted
from agents only — not, from advocates. There are
some of those gentlemen, by their great talents, earning
from £500 to £4,000 or £5,000 per annum of honoraries,
paid without the slightest hazard of loss; yet
they pay no tax professionally. Physicians pay no tax —
clergymen pay no tax, as such — and there is no
class of the community, (except vendors or certain
commodities) who pay a tax for leave to exercise
their calling. Law agents alone seem to be selected —
upon what principle we have never been able to
discover. And, it consists with our own knowledge, that in

Identifier: | JB/109/265/001 "JB/" can not be assigned to a declared number type with value 109.
Date_1	1827-07-20	Marginal Summary Numbering
Box	109	Main Headings	Procedure Code
Folio number	265	Info in main headings field	Collectanea
Image	001	Titles
Category	Collectanea	Number of Pages	1
Recto/Verso	recto	Page Numbering	C3
Penner		Watermarks	J WHATMAN TURKEY MILL 1826
Marginals		Paper Producer	Admiral Pavel Chichagov
Corrections		Paper Produced in Year	1826
Notes public		ID Number	35920
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