BRITISH MILLIONAIRES.

Hawera Star, Volume XLV, 11 August 1925, Page 2

BRITISH MILLIONAIRES.

MORE THAN SIX HUNDRED. MANY INCOMES OVER £IOO,OOO How many millionaires are there in Great Britain No on© knows for certain, but the latest statistics with regard to income tax, published by the Inland Revenue Commissioners, makes it possible to form a fairly accurate estimate. These statistics show that 529 people paid tax on incomes in excess of v £50,■jOo a year, and that 284 others received incomes of between £40,000 and £50,500 On a 5 per cent basis the recipient of £50,000 a year* has a capital of £1,000,000. It is probable that some oi the 529 neopl© who paid tax on incomes over £50,000 a year are getting a high, er return than 5 per cent, on their capital, which would mean that their capital, does not amount to £I,OOO,UUU. On the other hand a return of 5 per cent, from gilt-edged securities is fairly high, even in these days of dear money and therefore it is probable that some of the 284 tax-payers receiving between £40,000 and £SO 0W a year are worth more than £I,CXX),OOO. lhe big land-owners of Great Britain, among ivhdm are included many of the holders of ancient peerages, do not get a return of 5 per cent, from their land. Before the war the return on agricultural land in England was below 2 per cent. . , A moderate estimate based on the figures of the Inland Revenue Oommis si oners, would place the number or millionaires in Great Britain as between 600 and 700. Some of them are multi-millionaires, for the official figures show that there are 134 persons receiving incomes m excess of £IOO,OOO a year. On a 5 per cent basis, £IOO,OOO a year means a capital of £2,000,000. The Inland Revenue Commissioners refuse to satisfy public curiosity as to the number of people who have incomes of over £150,090 a year, and whether there are any enjoying incomes in excess of over £250,000 a year. They ar© all lumped together in the 134 receiving more than £IOO,OOO. But the official return shows that the aggregate incomes of these fortunate 134 was £26,261,000. Thi s gives an average income of £196,000 for each of them, so it is safe to assume that many of them have incomes of over £200,000, and that .some have a great deal more. In other words, there are probably over 100 people in Great Britain worth over £4,000,000. Millionaires in Great Britain have to pay nearly half their annual incomes to the Treasury in the form of income Lax • and when they die the Treasury takes 30 or 40 per cent, of the total value of their estates for succession and ecracy duties. Estates between £1,000,000 and £1,250,000 in value pay 30 per cent., and estates exceeding £2,000,000 pay. 40 per cent. From succession duties (wliich are levied on a sliding scale on all estates of over £IOO m value) the Chancellor of the Exchequer reeceives an average return of £50,000,000 a year. If millionaires in their determination riot to die managed to let 12 months pass without any diminution in their number, there would be a substantial diminution in the revenue, arid the Chancellor of the Exchequer would not be able to balance his Budget at the end of the year. But, although statistics over a long period show that millionaires in Great Britain have acquired the habit of exceeding the Biblical liihxfc of ‘ ‘three score years and ten-’ by five years, thev die with such commendable regularity that the Chancellor of the Exchequer count s on getting succession duties on ten millionaire estates in the course of each -.year. / In 1922 20 millionaires died, the wealthiest of them being Sir Ernest Cassel, who left a fortune of over £6.000,000, which paid £2,440000 to the Treasury in succession and legacy duties.