The taille () was a direct land tax on the French peasantry and non-nobles in ''Ancien Régime'' France. The tax was imposed on each household and based on how much land it held.

History

Originally only an "exceptional" tax (i.e. imposed and collected in times of need, as the king was expected to survive on the revenues of the "domaine royal", or lands that belonged to him directly), the taille became permanent in 1439, when the right to collect taxes in support of a standing army was granted to Charles VII of France during the Hundred Years' War. Unlike modern income taxes, the total amount of the taille was first set (after the Estates General was suspended in 1484) by the French king from year to year, and this amount was then apportioned among the various provinces for collection.

Exempted from the tax were clergy and nobles (except for non-noble lands they held in "pays d'état" [see below]), officers of the crown, military personnel, magistrates, university professors and students, and franchises (''villes franches'') such as Paris.

The provinces were of three sorts, the ''pays d'élection'', the ''pays d'état'' and the ''pays d'imposition''. In the ''pays d'élection'' (the longest held possessions of the French crown; some of these provinces had had the equivalent autonomy of a ''pays d'état'' in an earlier period, but had lost it through the effects of royal reforms) the assessment and collection of taxes were entrusted to elected officials (at least originally; later, these positions were bought), and the tax was generally "personal", meaning it was attached to non-noble individuals. In the ''pays d'état'' ("provinces with provincial estates" Brittany, Languedoc, Burgundy, Auvergne, Béarn, Dauphiné, Provence, and such portions of Gascony as Bigorre, Comminges, and the Quatre-Vallées; these recently acquired provinces had been able to maintain a certain local autonomy in terms of taxation), the assessment of the tax was established by local councils and the tax was generally "real", meaning that it was attached to non-noble lands (that is, even nobles possessing such lands were required to pay taxes on them). Finally, ''pays d'imposition'' were recently conquered lands which had their own local historical institutions (they were similar to the ''pays d'état'' under which they are sometimes grouped), although taxation was overseen by the royal intendant.

In an attempt to reform the fiscal system, new administrative divisions were created in the 16th century. The ''Recettes générales'', commonly known as ''généralités'' and overseen in the beginning by ''receveurs généraux'' or ''généraux conseillers'' (royal tax collectors), were initially only taxation districts. Their role steadily increased and by the mid 17th century, the généralités were under the authority of an ''intendant'', and they became a vehicle for the expansion of royal power in matters of justice, taxation, and policing. By the outbreak of the Revolution, there were 36 généralités; the last two were created as recently as 1784.

Until the late 17th century, tax collectors were called ''receveurs royaux''. In 1680, the system of the ''Ferme Générale'' was established, a franchised customs and excise operation in which individuals bought the right to collect the taille on behalf of the king, through six-year adjudications (some taxes, including the ''aides'' and the ''gabelle'', had been farmed out in this way as early as 1604). The major tax collectors in that system were known as the ''fermiers généraux'' ("farmers-general", in English).

Collection

Efficient tax collection was one of the major causes for French administrative and royal centralization in the Early Modern period. The taille became a major source of royal income (roughly half in the 1570s), the most important direct tax of pre-Revolutionary France, and provided for the growing cost of warfare in the 15th and 16th centuries. Records show the taille increasing from 2.5 million livres in 1515 to six million after 1551; in 1589 the taille reached a record 21 million livres, before dropping.

The taille was only one of a number of taxes. There also existed the "taillon" (a tax for military expenditures), a national salt tax (the gabelle), national tariffs (the "aides") on various products (including wine), local tariffs on speciality products (the "douane") or levied on products entering the city (the "octroi") or sold at fairs, and local taxes. Finally, the church benefited from a mandatory tax or tithe called the "dîme".

Louis XIV of France created several additional tax systems, including the "capitation" (begun in 1695) which touched every person including nobles and the clergy (although exemption could be bought for a large one-time sum) and the "dixième" (1710–1717, restarted in 1733), which was a true tax on income and on property value and was meant to support the military.

In 1749, under Louis XV, a new tax based on the "dixième", the "vingtième" (or "one-twentieth"), was enacted to reduce the royal deficit, and this tax continued through the ancien régime. This tax was based solely on revenues (5% of net earnings from land, property, commerce, industry and from official offices), and was meant to reach all citizens regardless of status, but the clergy, the regions with "pays d'état" and the parlements protested; the clergy won exemption, the "pays d'état" won reduced rates, and the parlements halted new income statements, effectively making the "vingtième" a far less efficient tax than it was designed to be. The financial needs of the Seven Years' War led to a second (1756–1780), and then a third (1760–1763) "vingtième" being created. In 1754 the "vingtième" produced 11.7 million livres.

The taille eventually became one of the most hated taxes of the ''Ancien Régime''.

References

See also

Tallage

La Dîme - a land tax benefiting the church

Category:Economic history of the Ancien Régime Category:Feudal duties Category:Taxation in France Category:Property taxes Category:Ferme générale

ca:Tall (impost) de:Taille (Steuer) es:Talla (impuesto) eu:Taila (zerga) fr:Taille (impôt) it:Taille nl:Taille-belasting oc:Talha (impòst) ru:Талья (налог) uk:Талья

name	Carine Roitfeld
residence	Paris
occupation	Editor
title	Former editor-in-chief, Paris ''Vogue''
predecessor	Joan Juliet Buck
successor	Emmanuelle Alt
children	Julia and Vladimir
employer	Condé Nast Publications
weight	}}

Carine Roitfeld (; born September 19, 1954 in Paris, France) was the Editor-in-Chief of French ''Vogue'' from 2001 to 31 January 2011. A former fashion model and writer, she announced her resignation on 17 December 2010 ; she is succeeded by Emmanuelle Alt.

Family background

Her father, Jacques Roitfeld, who died in 1999, was a Russian film producer who worked in Berlin before he moved to Paris and met her mother. Roitfeld describes her mother as a "very classic Frenchwoman." She describes her father as her "idol," and says that "he was always away, filming, at Cannes." She describes her upbringing in the 16th arrondissment of Paris, France was "very Bourgeois. I'm not saying we were in diamonds, but very, very comfortable."

Personal life

Roitfeld and her partner, Christian Restoin, have been together for thirty years. Restoin was the creator of the Equipment clothing line, which he closed in 2001 after Roitfeld accepted the Vogue editorship. The couple have two children:

Julia Restoin Roitfeld (born in Paris on 12 November 1980)

Vladimir Restoin Roitfeld (born in Paris on December 1984)

Julia graduated from Parsons School of Design in New York City in May 2006 and became the face of Tom Ford's fragrance Black Orchid in November 2006.

Vladimir graduated from the University of Southern California Film School in 2007.

Career

At 18, Roitfeld began modeling, having been scouted on the street in Paris by a British photographer's assistant. "I wasn't a star," she says. "I was just booked for junior magazines." She became a writer and then a stylist for French ELLE. While she was working as a freelance stylist, her daughter, Julia, was in a children's fashion shoot for Italian Vogue Bambini in 1990, photographed by Mario Testino. In a 2005 interview with 032c magazine, Roitfeld commented, "I was not the best stylist when I worked for fifteen years for French Elle, but certainly when I met Mario Testino something happened. The right person for me at the right time [...]." Roitfeld and Testino soon after began working as a team, doing advertising work as well as shoots for American and French Vogue. Roitfeld went on to work as a consultant and muse for Tom Ford at Gucci and Yves Saint-Laurent for six years. She was approached by Conde Nast International Chairman Jonathan Newhouse to edit French Vogue in 2001. In April 2006, there were rumors that Roitfeld was being approached by Hearst Corporation to take over Glenda Bailey's editor-in-chief position at U.S. Harper's Bazaar.

She has contributed to the images of Gucci, Missoni, Versace, Yves Saint-Laurent, and Calvin Klein.

On December 17, 2010, Carine Roitfeld resigned after ten years of service to concentrate on personal projects. She left the magazine at the end of January 2011. Speculation that she would be joining Tom Ford at his namesake company were refuted by the latter. She was succeeded at French Vogue on February 1, 2011 by Emmanuelle Alt, who had served as Fashion Director under Roitfeld.

References

External links

Paris Vogue's official website

Healy, Murray: "'We're French! We smoke, we show flesh, we have a lot of freedom!'" The Observer, 25 February 2007.

Larocca, Amy: "The Anti-Anna" New York Magazine, 08 February 2008.

Fashion Photo Gallery

Category:Living people Category:1954 births Category:French journalists Category:Fashion journalists Category:People from Paris Category:French magazine editors Category:French people of Ukrainian descent

fr:Carine Roitfeld ru:Ройтфельд, Карин zh:卡琳·洛菲德