TAXATION BURDEN

Auckland Star, Volume LXXIII, Issue 135, 10 June 1942, Page 5

TAXATION BURDEN

More Than Doubled Since Outbreak Of War BRITISH DETERMINATION Rec. 1.30 p.m. RUGBY, June 9. Sir Kingsley Wood, Chancellor of the Exchequer, said during a debate on the Finance Bill, that the bill was unavoidable and added one more layer to the already heavy burden imposed by its four predecessors. It was the measure of Britain's will to leave nothing undone to achieve victory. "The fact is," he said, "that even if we exclude the excess profits tax, the estimated full yield of all the new taxation, imposed by the five war Budgets, would amount to £934,000,000—£38,000,000 greater than the whole of our tax revenue for 1938. So that, even apart from the excess profits, the burden of taxation has more than doubled since before the war. , Of £634,000,000, £500,000,000 was accounted for by direct taxation and £434,000,000 by indirect taxation."

In the course of his speech the Chancellor made it a point that the stabilisation of prices should go on since its importance as a factor in preserying a sound, moral, social and economic foundation for the war effort could hardly be exaggerated."