Taxation and Opposition- USSR 1928
TAXATION AND OPPOSITION.
The Council of People's Commissars of the USSR decided to study the distribution of taxes in our country between different parts of the population. To do this, a commission was formed consisting of leading creatures from the Narkomfin (Frumkin, Levin), the Communist Academy (Yu. Larin, Kritsman), the State Planning Commission (Strumilin) and the Central Statistical Office (Pashkovsky).
All available materials, information and estimates were delivered to the commission and re-checked, and the missing data was additionally collected.
After four months of work, on October 25, 1927, the commission unanimously approved the results presented below.
When calculating, all taxes were taken into account without exception: both state and local. All taxes, both directly paid (agricultural tax, trade tax, income tax, and others) and indirectly levied on the population (in the price of purchased goods or services provided, for example, excises on vodka, salt, yarn and other items, customs duties on foreign goods included in the price of railway tickets, taxes, etc.). According to available information, calculations were made of how many of which goods each part of the population consumes and how much taxes are paid on them, paid not directly, but in the price of the goods.
In order to compare the severity of taxes for different parts of the population, a summary and verification of all available information about the income of each part of the population and the number of non-earning family members was made. Thus, it was found out how much each part of the population (each class) has per capita in the average annual income and how much of it goes to pay all taxes (direct and indirect, state, and local). Of course, at the same time, all expenses for running their own household were deducted from the income of each family (for those families that have their own production or trade or other household). For example, from the income of the peasants, the expenditure on feeding livestock and on seeds (for those who have livestock and who sow), etc., was deducted in advance. This means that the percentage of tax burden was determined in relation to such a family income as it remains in excess of the costs of their production or trade or other economy.
The entire population of the USSR in 1925/26 was only 144 million people. In 1925/26, out of every 1,000 people, each individual stratum of the population accounted for the number of inhabitants indicated in the table below. The amateurs have already been counted here together with the non-earning members of their families, and the entire distribution has been checked and its correctness approved by the same commission of the Council of People's Commissars.
