BRITISH FINANCE

Evening Post, Volume CVII, Issue 129, 5 June 1929, Page 18

BRITISH FINANCE

A BUDGET SURPLUS CHURCHILL'S GOOD YEAR (From "The Post's" Representative.) LONDON, sth April. Mr. Churchill, in, opening his fpurth Budget a year ago, anticipated a surplus of £14,500,000. The Exchequer returns now disclose a total revenue.which alike above expenditure and above Mr. Churchill's estimate of a surplusthe aggregate surplus amounting to over £18,000,000. The year's total is actually £4,720,000 in excess of expectations. Death duties wero remarkable. They yielded £80,570,000, exceeding the large 1 total of. tho previous year by :£3,260,I 000, and surpassing the estimate by over £8,500,000.

Stock Exchange activity and new capital issues explain the larger receipts from stamps. . A surpriso is afforded by excess profits duties, which, after bringing in nothing in 1927-8, actually yielded £850,000 in the past' year. ■ " Super-tax, on the other hand, has agair failed to come up to anticipations and, while £3,850,000 below the estimate, the total of £36,150,000 compares with £65,910,000 two years ago in 1926-7, indicating that the tax has already become excessive and encourages evasions. As seemed fairly certain, excise is also short of the estimate by some £6,750,000, part of .which may be attributed to the disappointing results of tho betting tax. Customs have done better than appeared probable, though some £1,700,000 under the estimate.

"There is nothing sensational about this showing for the past financial year," comments the "Daily Telegraph," (<but it does resigter a marked mvigoration of the movement away from the precarious conditions of two years ago, and it is tho more encouraging as being placed on record at a time when tho tide is visibly running more and more strongly in the same direction Mr. Churchill, it is clear, will have no need to tax his ingenuity this month in devising moans for squaring accounts in the year 1929-30,- on the contrary the various possibilities of relief for the taxpayer in the forthcoming Budget are already in debate. That there will be 'surprises' is widely assumed. But what would most surprise, not to say disappoint, all who have followed with attention Mr. Churchill's conduct of our finances during a peritfd of almost desperate difficulty and danger,- would be a Budget in which soundness was sacrificed to any consideration of fugitive political advantage. lie might well be content to rest upon his record iv having, as Chancellor of the Exchequer enabled tho country to live down the disasters of the general strike ami the stoppage of the coal industry without suffering any addition to indirect or direct taxation; andMn having, furthermore; conceived and carried into effect that de-rating scheme which will relieve industry of tons of millions yearly of' taxation in its most onerous, and un.^.•♦Hiablc form."