State business tax upon the Sergei Witte's reform: an estimate of its proportionality

The article represents the first attempt to evaluate proportionality of the prerevolutionary Russian business taxation based on the primary statistics of the business tax. The Barnaul data of 1914 prove the business tax to be evidently unproportional, the low-profit enterprises suffering heavier payments. This unproportionality deprived the government of the opportunity to raise budget revenues by merely increasing tax rates and urged to a fundamental reform.