Notes

There were several factors for this. Many excises incorporated mitigating provisions, like exemptions and sliding scales, that reweighed their impact in the direction of higher-income people (like graduation of the beer tax according to quality; conversion of the grain and salt taxes to per-capita taxes on assumed consumption; a progressive tariff for the tax on household servants, and on weddings and burials, that may be seen as wealth taxes, as most people were exempt). Finally, the relative importance of these excises in total revenue declined in later years. It accounted for 83 percent of total revenue in 1650, but only 66 percent in 1790.Jacob Soll (2014) noted, "with the complexity of the stock exchange, [17th-century] Dutch merchants' knowledge of finance became more sophisticated than that of their Italian predecessors or German neighbors. "From about 1600 to about 1720 the Dutch had the highest per capita income in the world. From about the early 1600s to about the mid-18th century, the Dutch Republic's economic, business and financial systems were the most advanced and sophisticated ever seen in history.