WIVES AND INCOME-TAX

Dominion, Volume 11, Issue 66, 11 December 1917, Page 9

WIVES AND INCOME-TAX

MR. BONAB LAW'S NEW SCHEME.

Except by bachelors, Mr. Bonar Law's announcement that ho proposes to include in his next Budget a "wife abatement" of J825 in calculating income tax las been received with hearty approval (states the "Daily News" in a recent issue). The abatement will amount, of course, to a tax on bachelors, .which has been widely advocated, particularly in Labour circles, fAr some time past. The married men's only criticism is that the tax is : too small; "but," thoy add, "the principle's the thing." America has enjoyed a bachelor tax since 1913, in the form of an income tax exemption scale so differentiated between the married and the unmarried as to impose an extra charge upon tho well-to-do bachelor of Ah. a year. France and Austria also put a special tax on their 'inmarried males. Mr. Bonar Law's scheme, is the simplest yet devised,- amounting as it does Gimply to reckoning a man's wife as being, for the pnrposos of income tax, a child of liis, and therefore reducing liis taxable income by J!25. That this arrangement will confer a solid benefit upon the married man is shown by the' following examples of its working:— Present fax With wife . per week, allowance. Income £3 a- week: s. d. s. d. Bachelor 1 11 1' H Man and wife...... 1 1! 0 01 Man, wife, two _ . children Nil. Nil. Income JH a week: ' Bachelor 3 41 3 4| ' Maii and wife 3 2 3J Man. wifa, . two children 12J • 011 Income c£s a .week: • Bachelor 5. 5 0f... Man and'wife.....'. 5 71 4 6{ Man,-'.'wife, two . „ . children 3 51 - 4-1 In making tlie: above calculations an abatement of £10 has been allowed for life insnrance, renewals .or tools, elc.