COMPARATIVE BURDENS.

Auckland Star, Volume LIV, Issue 48, 26 February 1923, Page 4

COMPARATIVE BURDENS.

There is fresh proof in our cable news to-day of the need for examining with caution statistics of taxation. According to the Chancellor of the Exchequer the present per capita taxation (direct and indirect?* of Britain is £1:5 lli/2, ot Franco £5 lti/8, and of the United States £4 18/. A year ago. however, the House of Commons was presented

with figures showing that the British taxation per head was £"20 tf/10. aml the current "Whitaker's Almanack' , gives the amount as £22 "2/. If both sets of Government figures are correct, there has been a remarkable fall in taxation during the past twelve months. This fall may be, like the heavy drop in New Zealand between 1920-21 and 1021-22, a result of shrinkage in the taxable income, but the British Government has made a sincere effort to reduce the rates of taxation, more sincere than that made here. Our own taxation stood in the year 1021-22 (the figures for the current year are not complete) at £13 5/7. It must be remembered, on the one hand, that we have impoeed rates on certain forms of income in excess of anything levied in Britain, and on the others, that many services that are paid for in New Zealand out of national income are met in England out of local rates. By reason of the heavier local taxation the total burden in England is a good (leal heavier than it is with us.

The American figure. U IS/, is not worth much until we know what it includes and excludes. In America there is State as well as Federal taxation. The discrepancies between sets of figures for France are remarkable. According to a British statement issued a year a<?o, French taxation per head was £11 13/7: now we are informed it is only £"> IC/8. "WhttakerV figures, taking the franc at fifty to the £. work out at something over £7. There has been nothing to indicate a great fall in French taxation, but if the present, figures are correct they give additional point to the eriticisniß that have been levelled at the French refusal to pay more in taxes. According to Dr. Dillon, there is no country in Europe "whose individual citizens possess as much or nearly as much money per head as France," but "direct taxation is an odious expedient Which French citizens in general abhor and the omnipotent peasant in particular will not endure." so that "the lightness of th<| taxpayers' burden has become an international scandal." He alleges that while over 50 per cent of the wealth of France derives from agriculture, only one-tenth oT the national revenue is collected at this source, and he quotes a leading French paper as saying that two-thirds of the merchants evade the tax on business transactions. France has anticipated and mortgaged enormous reparation payments by raising loans-to balance her budgets. This is creating a serioue financial situation for France, and one from which it is not easy to see clearly the means of escape.