Octroi

Octroi (French pronunciation: [ɔktʁwa]; Old French: octroyer, to grant, authorize; Lat. auctor) is a local tax collected on various articles brought into a district for consumption.

Antiquity

Octroi taxes have a respectable antiquity, being known in Roman times as vectigalia. These vectigalia were either the portorium, a tax on the entry from or departure to the provinces (those cities which were allowed to levy the portorium shared the profits with the public treasury); the ansarium or foricarium, a duty levied at the entrance to towns; or the edulia, sales imposts levied in markets. Vectigalia were levied on wine and certain articles of food, but it was seldom that the cities were allowed to use the whole of the profits of the taxes. Vectigalia were introduced into Gaul by the Romans, and remained after the invasion by the Franks, under the name of tonlieux and coutumes. They were usually levied by the owners of seigniories.

Middle Ages

During the 12th and 13th centuries, when the towns succeeded in asserting their independence, they at the same time obtained the recognition of their right to establish local taxation, and to have control of it. The royal power, however, gradually asserted itself, and it became the rule that permission to levy local taxes should be obtained from the king. From the 14th century onwards, there are numerous charters granting (octroyer) to French towns the right to tax themselves. The taxes did not remain strictly municipal, for an ordinance of Cardinal Mazarin (in 1647) ordered the proceeds of the octroi to be paid into the public treasury, and at other times the government claimed a certain percentage of the product, but this practice was finally abandoned in 1852.

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The Ghost Within Me

by: Echoterra

Without you, without you
Thenights are long, cold dark
Without you, without you, I'm yearning
Foryour sinful touch
Far away we will find our own way
In decay we will fade into the light
I know you're always with me
Together just you and me
I know you're right beside me
The Ghost Within Me
I know you're always near me
Forever we will always be
I feel deep inside of me
The Ghost Within my Heart
Without you, without you, I feel so empty inside
Without you, without you, I walk into the endless
Night
Far away we will find our own way
In decay we will fade into the light
I know you're always with me
Together just you and me
I know you're right beside me
The Ghost Within Me
I know you're always near me
Forever we will always be
I feel deep inside of me
The Ghost Within my Heart
Far away from the lives we used to know




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