This reform, which may seem immense, rests on very simple machinery.

Rabourdin regarded the tax on personal property as the most trustworthy representative of general consumption.

Individual fortunes are usually revealed in France by rentals, by the number of servants, horses, carriages, and luxuries, the costs of which are all to the interest of the public treasury.
Houses and what they contain vary comparatively but little, and are not liable to disappear.

After pointing out the means of making a tax-list on personal property which should be more impartial than the existing list, Rabourdin assessed the sums to be brought into the treasury by indirect taxation as so much per cent on each individual share.

A tax is a levy of money on things or persons under disguises that are more or less specious.