Note XXXIII-57 — Chapter XXXIII · COMMERCE AND FINANCE. 1801-1887.

The chief sources of revenue are those of customs, slaughtering cattle, and sales of spirituous liquors, tobacco, gunpowder, and stamped paper. The total revenue of 1845 amounted to $74,911, a sum entirely inadequate to meet the most necessary expenses of the government. The import duty was 20 per cent ad valorem, to which was added 8 per cent. The only export duty was 1 to 3 per cent on gold, silver, and precious stones. A transit duty of 5 per cent was levied on goods passing through Nic. to the other states. Merchant vessels paid 50 cts per ton. The total revenue from customs in 1846 was $51,818; from internal taxation, $3,626; from rum, etc, $24,260. The revenue from tobacco was pledged to the Brit. govt, in order to ransom the port of San Juan del Norte. Other sources were insignificant. Receipts of 1851, $122,686; 1857-60, $1,327,637; 1861-70, $5,665,877. The tariff of imports was modified in Dec. 1868, and increased 10 per cent in Feb. 1870. Agricultural implements, materials for mining, and other articles, were exempted from import duty by a law of Nov. 2, 1869. The revenue from customs became flourishing, and yielded in 1883 $1,275,506, due to the law of Sept. 25, 1879, which raised the duties on several articles, and changed the mode of collecting from ad valorem to weight. It seems that most goods paid no more under the new system than formerly; but much fraud was averted. Imports generally paid 50 per cent ad val. The port of San Juan del Norte and the Mosquito reservation have a free zone, the merchants of San Juan paying a tax in lieu of import duties. Receipts of 1871, $958,922; 1873-80, $8,416,879; 1881-2, $3,351,767, an increase of $951,674 over the preceding two years. Belly, Nic., i. 311; Lévy, Nic., 353-8; Nic., Gaceta, March 6, 1863; March 18, Apr. 29, 1865; Jan. 20, 1866; March 21, 1868; Jan. 2, 23, 30, Nov. 6, 1869; May 27, 1871; Jan. 20, 1872; Id., Decretos, 1869-70, 123; Pan. Star and Herald, Feb. 1, 1883.