INCOME TAX

Press, Volume LXXII, Issue 21886, 12 September 1936, Page 8

INCOME TAX

TO THE EDITOR OF THE PRESS. Sir,—Now that the Land and Income Tax Bill is before Parliament, I should like to point out an anomaly in the assessment of income tax which works an injustice on certain taxpayers. Exemptions are deducted in the first instance from earned income, which means that where the exemption absorbs the whole of this, the tax is assessed wholly on unearned income at the 33 1-3 per cent, higher rate, thus placing such taxpayers with part-earned income in exactly the same category as those with wholly unearned income. In my own case, with an income of £275, of which £157 is earned, I estimate having to pay an extra £1 through this unfair method of assessment, which gives me n.o credit for my earned income. It seems to me that the only equitable way is to assess the tax on the taxable balance proportionate to the earned and unearned income, which will not involve much more calculation and will remove an obvious hardship on those with small earned in-

comes and consequently dependent on unearned.—Yours, etc., TAXPAYER. September 11, 1936.