Waist (tax)
The waist (from French tailler = to share, to cut) was the typical direct tax in France (but also in Vaud ) in the Middle Ages , just as tonlieu was the general name for an indirect tax. In feudal law, including the right to tonlieu, droit de tonlieu , this indirect tax was a levy for the display of goods in the market .
Other words used in the same sense in certain districts were queste (questa, quista), fouage (foragium), côte . In essence, the taxes referred to by these terms were a tax levied on a group of people, which was then divided among them in various ways. In old French law there are three types of waist: taille servile , taille seigneuriale and taille royale .
The three forms of the waist
Waist servile
The waist servile can hardly be called a tax; it had become a source of income for certain individuals. Any feudal lord who owned serfs could collect the waist from them, and originally this was done arbitrarily ( à volonté ) both in frequency and amount . It always remained a characteristic of serfdom, but was limited and fixed, either through contracts or concessions from the feudal lord ( taille subscriptions ) or by custom.
Waist seigneuriale
The waist seigneuriale was a real tax that the feudal lord could collect from all his subjects, except from nobles and clergymen. With the rise of feudalism , apparently not every feudal lord had the right of elevation, but only those who had high jurisdiction ( haute justice ). But he made a legal claim to it without the need for a contract between himself and the taxpayer. He determined the amount to be paid by each group of residents; these groups then had to take responsibility for the breakdown, collection and payment to the Lord by choosing commissioners ( preud hommes ) from among themselves for this purpose. This reduced tax administration to its simplest form. Common law or an order from the feudal lord generally determined the distribution of the tax burden. Often it was a stove tax ( fouage ), where the same amount had to be paid for each fireplace and thus for each household. But this equality, which took no account of wealth and poverty, was felt to be unfair, so that the breakdown was made dependent on the families' funds.
The waist seigneuriale , like the waist servile, had the character of a personal tax ( taille personnelle ), an elementary income tax on any kind of income. The king originally only had the right to collect the waist seigneuriale in areas where he had high jurisdiction. There was no real royal tax.
During the thirteenth century, the view took hold that it was appropriate for the king to levy a tax in wartime on all subjects of the feudal lords who had high jurisdiction in different parts of the royal domain. In addition, he was granted by the provincial estates (representatives of the nobility, clergy and cities) or the estates general of Tailles. The general waistline in favor of the king thus became more common and tended to become a permanent fixture.
This development was confirmed by the orderly of Orléans on November 2, 1439 by King Charles VII and the French Estates General. Their immediate object was not the regulation of the waistline, but the organization of the orderly companies ( compagnies d'ordonnance ). With military spending now becoming permanent, it was natural that the waistline, which had long been used to fund the king's war, should also become permanent. This was implicit in the order of 1439, which at the same time abolished the waist seigneuriale , as it competed too much with the waist royale as a double burden for the taxpayer . A kind of waist seigneuriale continued to exist alongside the waist servile , but it required a title or contract between the taxed guarantor and the master.
Waist royale
The royal waist corresponded to the seugneuriale waist with regard to disposition and retraction . So with her the clergy and the nobility were excluded from the elevation. Although the royal waist was enforced by law from the king, it did not affect the entire kingdom. The pays d'élection were subject to it, the pays d'état not.
Shaping the waist
In the Pays d'élections , the waist was almost always personal ( taille personelle ), i.e. a tax on any type of income. Each year the king in his council fixed the total amount that the waist should bring in the following year. He drafted the Brevet de la taille , and each taxpayer's contribution was calculated through a series of subdivisions ( impôt de répartition ). The Conseil du roi first divided the sum among the various Généralités , then among the Élections from which they were composed. Then the locally elected representatives, the so-called shared ELUS , in each election the amount due to the municipalities on. To that extent, the system remained the same as that of the old waist seigneuriale - breakdown and confiscation was a matter for the municipalities. In principle, the crown had nothing to do with it and did not bear the costs of a local administration for this purpose. The community had to deliver its quota at the waist and was in principle even treated as a debtor for this amount; the inhabitants were therefore jointly responsible, a state that was not ended until the time of Turgot , and even then not completely.
The residents of the waistline were called to a general assembly by the syndic and elected from among their number commissioners for the assessment ( asseurs ) and collection ( collecteurs ) of the tax. Originally both functionaries were elected separately, but from 1600 onwards one person fulfilled both functions; the intention was a fairer and more dutiful estimate. The system seemed admirable as it was a form of self-government in that regard, but in practice it was oppressive for taxpayers. The asseurs estimated individual incomes arbitrarily, with arguments and rivalries in the villages leading to overcharging for some and undercharging for others; there have been innumerable complaints on this point. No doubt the Elus should have been in control, but they don't seem to have taken this part of their job very seriously. Payments were strictly enforced, and thus the waistline was an onerous and hated tax for various reasons. It had other bad habits: not only were the nobility and clergy excluded from it, many other privileges had also been introduced by law, with full or partial exemption applying to a large number of civil and military officials and employees of the crown at the Ferme générale extended. Cities in general were not subject to it, at least not directly. Some were exempted from prehistoric times, others ( rédimés ) had acquired the exemption for a sum of money, still others ( abbonies ) performed their obligation in a different way, by paying a contractually regulated amount into the royal treasury instead of the waist generally raised by octrois or entrance fees .
Reforming the waistline
The reforms of the waist around the middle of the 17th century were mainly carried out by the provincial directors or the Cours des aides , who were animated by a liberal spirit. The intendants - exercising their general or special powers - took the place of the élus and delegated commissaires aux tailles for the appraisal of the municipalities, who directed and supervised the elected tax collectors - mostly uneducated and partisan peasants. They also tried to differentiate between different types of income in order to arrive at a fairer estimate of total income, and they set by tariff the weighting with which each source of income contributed. Sometimes they officially made their own decisions about the share of certain taxpayers, and although sometimes this was done as a privilege, it was often a measure of justice. They also tried to limit the scope of privileges. These efforts were inspired by a number of scientific studies and reviews, including the “Projet d'une dîme royale” (project of a royal tithe) by Sébastien Le Prestre de Vauban and the “Projet de taille tarifée” by the Abbé de Saint-Pierre .
Regional variations
In certain areas, the waist was a tax on real property (taille réelle) . It was not a tax shared equally among all landowners, but the question of whether or not a particular good was taxed was decided according to the nature of the property, not the owner. The fiefs (biens nobles) and the church estates (biens ecclésiastiques ) were excluded; Non-noble possessions (tenures roturiers), on the other hand, were taxed. A small part of the Pays d'élections was also Pays de taille réelle . In the Pays d'états , on the other hand, it was the main tax and even there an attempt had been made to abandon the exemption of aristocratic property. In these districts there were land registers ( cadastres ) which allowed a non-arbitrary estimate; at the end of the Ancien Régime they only required a revision.
In a number of provinces where the waist royale was levied, there were neither elctions nor généralités , and the entire tax administration was in the hands of the directors. These were the provinces to the east and north, which were united with the crown at a time when the power of the intendants was already fully developed; sometimes they were referred to as pays d'imposition .