In addition, the communes have a right to levy a, surtax not exceeding 50% of the quota levied by the state upon lands and buildings; a family tax, or fuocatico, upon the total incomes of families, which, for fiscal purposes, are divided into various categories; a tax based upon the rent-value of houses, and other taxes upon cattle, horses, dogs, carriages and servants; also on licences for shopkeepers, hotel and restaurant keepers, &c.; on the slaughter of animals, stamp duties, one-half of the tax on bicycles, &c. Occasional sources of interest are found in the sale of communal property, the realization of communal credits, and the contraction of debt.
Not only the workmen and the large class of idlers attracted to Paris by the system, but rentiers and government officials, whose incomes were paid in assignats on a scale arbitrarily fixed by the government, saw themselves threatened with actual starvation.
Eachard attributed the contempt into which the clergy had fallen to their imperfect education, their insufficient incomes, and the want of a true vocation.
The assessors estimated the individual incomes arbitrarily, village quarrels and rivalries leading them to over-charge some and under-charge others, and complaints were numberless on this point.
The qualifications for electors and members of the Assembly are the same, namely men of full age owning houses or land worth £50, or, who rent such property of the yearly value of £10; or who, having lived three years in the province, have incomes of not less than £96 a year.