Collection Of Taxation

Press, Volume XCVI, Issue 28321, 5 July 1957, Page 3

Collection Of Taxation

Sir, —I would refer to your subleader in Tuesday’s issue on this subject, and in particular to your closing statement that “high taxation challenges the moral values and principles of otherwise lawabiding citizens.” How very true this is, and it seems to be expected that moral values shall all be on the one side and that what is done in the name of the State can never be immoral. I have always considered it to be unjust, and therefore immoral, that we should be called upon to pay tax on tax, and it would appear that under P.A.Y.E. this injustice will be accentuated. A man with, say, an estimated income of £lOOO and> say, an estimated tax liability of £ 100, will by monthly, fortnightly, or weekly deductions pay tax on £lOO which he will never even handle. Is this morally right? Increase the tax if need be, but do not ask us to pay tax on money which we never receive.—Yours, etc., SHYLOCK. July 3, 1957. [The Taxation Committee of 1951, after carefully examining this question, found that the social security charge and income tax constitute in effect a division into two parts of the taxation on income payable by each taxpayer, and that in fact there is no “tax on tax.”—Ed., “The Press.”]