MOTHER COUNTRY’S BURDEN.

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume XIII, Issue 285, 17 November 1923, Page 7

MOTHER COUNTRY’S BURDEN.

GIGANTIC TAXATION FIGURES. (Contributed by the X.Z. Welfare League.) Mr. J., Ellis Barker, the well-known publicist, in the August, 1923, number of “Current History,’’ gives some remarkable details ol “England’s Gigantic Tax Burden” and the incidence of the taxation at the heart of the Empire. The estimates of England’s national income upon which this taxation is levied vary, hut Mr. Barker thinks that £3,000,000,000 represent the total annual income at the present moment. Of this sum onethird is handed* over to the Post Office and the tax collector. The taxation raised before the war and since the attainment of peace is shown, for certain years, in this table:— Year. £ 1913-14 198,243,000 1920- 1,435,985,000 1922-23 914,012,000 In addition to the revenue raised by the Imperial Parliament there is that raised by the local authorities. The figures tor England and Wales alone are given by Air. Barker:— Year. £ 1913-14 71,276,000 1921- 173,000,000 1922- 159,000,000 It will be seen that municipal taxation has more than doubled since the pre-war year. “If we add local and national taxation,” Mr. Barker points out, “it appears that fully one-third of the national income or more is claimed by the various tax collectors, and that the average Englishman works eight months of the year for himself and four months for the community.” THE ENGLISH INCOME TAX. “Before the war the normal income tax (in England) came to a shilling in the pound of income received. During the war, it was rapidly raised to six shillings in the pound, and at the last budget statement it was ; lowered from nve shillings in the pound to four and sixpence in the pound. In other words, the normal income taxpayer pays lour shilling and sixpence on every pound of income he receives. The less well-to-do are given various allowances in accordance with their • position, means and responsibilities, | while the more fortunate have to pay •an additional income tax which is 'called super tax, and which is imposed I'on incomes of £2090 and more.” . . “Income tax begins with a fraction of 1 per cent on small incomes, and rises to about 50 per cent., in the case of very large incomes.” I Coming to the estate and succession [duties, Air. Barker quotes the official | scale as demonstrating that, at the I owner’s death, property pay., 1; om 1 !to 40 per cent, to the tax gatherer. I “The estate and death duties are,” he 'comments, “nierely a kind of income I and sup r tax which has to be paid 'only o .cc in a while, and if yearly ' provis.uns lor the estate and succession duties are made, the total income tax is brought up in many cases to 80 per cent, and more.’’ ♦. He traces the improvement of the English gentry, and describes the [English method of taxing the divii donds of companies “at the source.” I Income taxes secured in 1913-14 the I sum of £47,249,000; the same form of < taxation, with enormously increased i rates, secured ‘£379,045,000 in 1922-23 ! - —an eight-fold increase, luxury taxes ! also yield huge suras, especially those [on alcoholic drink and tobacco. The tax on home produced spirits has risen from £19,500,000 in 1913-14, to £51,000,000 for the current financial year (estimate), and that on beer from £13,500,000 to £121,000,000. The growth, Air. Barker remarks, in the drink bill of the United Kingdom is due not to increased consumption, but to the increased taxation on less consumption. In this connection, he says: “in reality, the consumption of beer and spirits has declined in the most extraordinary manner, and the bulk of the money spent on drink and tobacco goes to the Treasury in the form of various taxes. It is difficult to make an estimate, but I think that out of every sixpence spent on alcohol and tobacco, approximately fivepence goes to the State.”. Per head of population, the British debt is four times as great as the national debt of the United States. The British interest bill has grown from, roughly, £37,000,000 in 1913-14 to £363,438,000 in 1922-23. Social . legislation (poor law. pensions, health, etc.) which in 1919 cost the British taxpayer £25,000,000 now costs him ■over £400,000,000 a year. ’ “Overtaxation endangers England’s I industrial position” is the lesson Mr. Barker draws.. The lesson is one we 'should give more attention to in New i Zealand and Australia. - Overtaxation is a danger everywhere.