Robert Meyer, Was habe ich zu faßieren? Was habe ich zu zahlen? (2. Heft, 1897)

This is a single-author practical legal guide to the Austrian tax reform. Its scope is the reform’s second booklet: personal income tax, supplementary salary and rent taxes, administrative procedure, penalties, and the financial plan. Meyer’s central aim is pedagogical and political: to make the new system intelligible to taxpayers while defending its principle of taxation according to actual capacity.

Die weitesten Kreise der Bevölkerung bringen der Personaleinkommensteuer eine günstige Beurteilung entgegen.

English translation: The broadest circles of the population regard the personal income tax with a favorable judgment.

The core thesis is that the reform shifts taxation from isolated “Ertragsquellen” to the person’s total economic position. Meyer contrasts the old system, which taxed land, buildings, trade, salaries, and rents separately, with a tax that asks after the whole taxpayer.

Niemals wurde bisher bei der Besteuerung gefragt, wie viel hat der Mann im Ganzen?

English translation: Never before, in taxation, has the question been asked: how much does the man have altogether?

This move entails source-neutrality: income from land, houses, business, salary, securities, or rent is to be combined rather than privileged or penalized by origin. Meyer repeatedly stresses that this is the conceptual break with older direct taxes.

Der Rentier und der Grundbesitzer zahlen in gleichem Maße.

English translation: The rentier and the landowner pay in equal measure.

A second conceptual move is progression joined to an exempt subsistence minimum. Incomes up to 600 fl. are exempt; above that, the scale rises from very low rates to an asymptotic maximum of five percent. Meyer’s explanation is deliberately arithmetical, meant to show that the scale is moderate but real.

Daraus geht hervor, dass die kleinsten Steuerpflichtigen etwa $0.6%$, also etwas mehr als $1/2%$, die größten $5%$ zahlen.

English translation: From this it follows that the smallest taxpayers pay about $0.6%$—that is, somewhat more than $1/2%$—while the largest pay $5%$.

The household provisions are treated as both anti-evasion and administratively realistic. Meyer defends combining the incomes of household members because commissions can estimate the visible prosperity of a household more reliably than the hidden internal allocation of property among spouse and children. His examples show how formal division of securities among family members could otherwise dissolve the tax base.

Da ist es doch wohl viel richtiger, wenn das Gesetz sagt: Wie ihr das Einkommen unter euch vertheilt habt, ist gleichgültig, ihr habt 4800 fl. zum Leben, und dafür sollt ihr auch Steuer zahlen.

English translation: Surely it is much more correct if the law says: how you have distributed the income among yourselves is immaterial; you have 4800 florins to live on, and on that you shall pay tax.

Much of the work is devoted to defining “income.” Meyer’s decisive distinction is between costs incurred to obtain, secure, and maintain income, which may be deducted, and uses of income—household consumption, gifts, debt repayment, investment, saving—which may not. This gives the guide its practical force: it teaches taxpayers not only what to declare, but how to think economically.

Der Haushalt ist keine Abzugspost vom Einkommen, sondern eine Verwendung des Einkommens.

English translation: The household is not a deduction from income, but a use of income.

The later sections turn from doctrine to machinery: who must file, what forms require, how household and employer lists prepare assessment, how commissions operate, and what remedies exist. Meyer presents the elected-and-appointed assessment commissions as a reform in legitimacy, but also insists that their task is factual rather than punitive.

Die Aufgabe der Commission ist, mit ihrer Schätzung in allen Fällen dem wirklichen Einkommen möglichst nahe zu kommen.

English translation: The task of the commission is, in all cases, to come as close as possible with its estimate to the actual income.

At the same time, outward signs of expenditure may be used only as evidence, not as a separate tax object. This limitation is important for Meyer’s balance between fiscal scrutiny and private life.

In allen Fällen ist jedoch daran festzuhalten, dass der Verbrauch oder Aufwand stets nur eine Grundlage für die Schätzung, nicht aber selbst den Gegenstand der Besteuerung bildet.

English translation: In all cases, however, it must be firmly maintained that consumption or expenditure always constitutes only a basis for the estimate, and not itself the object of taxation.

The sections on the Besoldungssteuer and Rentensteuer explain why additional taxes fall on high service incomes and certain rents or interest: they are meant to preserve parity with landowners, house owners, and businesses still subject to special taxes. The general provisions and penal chapter complete the administrative state of the reform: representation, liability, service of notices, witness duties, book inspection, entry into business premises, secrecy, and sanctions for concealment or false declaration.

The financial plan gives the reform its redistributive conclusion. New revenues fund administrative costs, tax remissions on older direct taxes, transfers to provincial funds, and the exclusion of local surcharges from the personal income tax. Meyer’s final balance is clear: small taxpayers gain, middle taxpayers roughly break even, and the wealthy and rentiers carry more.

Die kleinsten bisherigen Steuerträger zahlen weniger als bisher.

English translation: The smallest previous taxpayers pay less than before.

The work’s relevance lies in its unusually concrete translation of fiscal legislation into everyday accounting, household organization, and administrative practice. It is at once a manual for compliance and a defense of the new fiscal principle: justice requires measuring the taxpayer as a whole economic person.