A DEFICIT OF £16,600,000.

Press, Volume LXI, Issue 13411, 1 May 1909, Page 9

A DEFICIT OF £16,600,000 .

HEAVY ADDITIONAL TAXATION

faitcd Press Association— By Electric Telegraph—Copyright. LONDON, April 29. Tho Rt. Hen. D. Lloyd-George, Chancellor of the Exchequer, liar, issued a White Pp.'".v>r, embodying the facts usually contained in the first part of the Budget. It shows that the revenue for 1908----1909 amounted to £'150.578,000. He estimaic.! tho revenue for 1909-1910 at £M3..'W0.0C0. and the expenditure at £101.152,000, leaving a Budget deficit of £762,000 (sic. query £15.702,000). The decrease in the expect rd revenue was due to the necessity for estimating a reduction of a million in Customs, and a million and a-half in Excise, compared with 1009-1909. The total of incomes assessed fcr income tax was 1400 millions, and a penny in t'.•.<> £ produced £21,833.000 (sic). Tho National Debt amounted to £751,121,300. The diminution in foreign trade during 190S was £114,000.000, and it was estimated that from one-third to j one-half was accounted for by the general fall in juices below the 1907 level. It was impossible to prophesy an immediate and rapid recovery, but there were some indications that the foreign trade was beginning to improve. 'The death duties for 1908-00 yielded £18,370,020. Tho interest with which Mr LloydGeorge's Budget Speech is anticipated id keener than it has been in any Budget since Sir W. V. Harcourt's Budget Speech of 1894. It was proposed to reduce tho finking fund, increase the death and succession unties, increase the spirit duties, heavily increase the taxation of unearned incomes, and increase the tobacco duty, leaving tho beer, sugar, and tea duties unchanged. (Received April 30th, 9.15 p.m.) LONDON, April 30. The- House was crowded, excepting the Strangers' Gallery, during the dolivery of the Budget speech. The Chancellor, who spoke for four and a half hours, claimed that the increased expenditure had- been substantially incurred with the unanimous assent of all parties. The growth of temperance had added considerably to the financial difficulties. They had to find £16,000,000, which would leave a surplus of £448,000. It was proposed to meet the deficiency by reducing the contribution to the' Sinking Fund by £3,000,000. The income tax on earned incomes below £20C0 would remain at ninepence; on £3000 it would be Is; above £3000 Is 3d. A further super tax of sixpence would be levied on incomes over £-5000. The income tax charges would yield three end a half millions, and it was expected that the super tax alone in the following year would yield £2.300,000, based on the. amount by which the income exceeds £3000. A sum of £2,850,000 would be raised by a revision of-the Estate Duties; £650,000 by an increase of the Stamp Duties on share transactions, and motors would bo taxed, from 40s to 40 guineas, according to the horse-power, doctors' cars paying half taxes. Motor cycles would pay £1; petrol threepence per gallon, with a rebate of a halfpenny to commercial cars. The motor taxes would yield £600,000, which would bs spent on the improvement of. roads. The Budget proposes that the State shall take 20 per cent, of the unearned increment of land, payable at death and when tho land is sold; a further halfpenny in tho £ on tho capital value of undeveloped land and uugotten minerals; also a halfpenny in tho £ on mining royalties; also 10 per cent reversion duty on the benefit accruing at the termination of a lease. Tho land taxes will produce half a million. An increase of eightpenco a pound on manufactured tobacco will yield £1,900,000; an increase of 3s 9d per gallon on spirits will yield £1,600,000; revision,of liquor licenses and a uniform percentage on tho annual value of licensed houses will produce £2,600,000. Mr Lloyd George suggested that tho whisky duties would justify an increase retail of a halfpenny per glass. The Government, ho added, were considering industrial insurance on a compulsory, self-contributory, Stateaided principle, while preserving existing benefit societies. They proposed next year to give old-age pensions to workhouse septuagenarians. Mr Lloyd Gcorga further stated- that tho greater part of the cost of tho Dreadnoughts would fall on next year. If the contingent Dreadnoughts were built the naval bill would be gigantic, nevertheless Government did not intend to avoid their obligations. Failure to meet them was not Liberalism but lunacy. But it would be an act of the greatest unwisdom to throw away eight millions. "We cannot," ho said, "build a navy against nightmares." Tho increased yield of his new taxes make the necessary provision for the Navy next year possible without resort to the vicious expedient of a loan. Incomes under £500 are granted an abatement of £10 per child for children under sixteen. Mr Austen Chamberlain said tho Budget was so detailed that immediate criticism was impossible. It might serve the purpose of an electoral manifesto, but would take three Parliaments to pass the legislation necessary for full achievement. The stamp duty on bearer bonds and other securities transferable by delivery will bo raised from 10s to 20s per cent, of nominal value, but bonds issued by Colonial Governments remain at half-a-crown per cent. "The Times" opines that tho stamp duties will operate very disadto bankers who ire paralysed in respect to raising colonial corporation loans. Such loans may be expected to be obtained by New York bankers in future.