There are no taxes which have not a tendency to impede accumulation, because there are none which may not be considered as checking production, and as causing the same effects as a bad soil or climate, a diminution of skill or industry, a worse distribution of labour, or the loss of some useful machinery; and although some taxes will produce these effects in a much greater degree than others, it must be confessed that the great evil of taxation is to be found, not so much in any selection of its objects, as in the general amount of its effects taken collectively.