HIGHER TAXES IN GERMANY

Southland Times, Issue 24002, 18 December 1939, Page 8

HIGHER TAXES IN GERMANY

Rates In Britain Compared NAZIS BORROW HEAVILY (British Official Wireless) (Received December 17, 6.30 p.m.) RUGBY, December 16. The weekly journal, The Economist, reproduces with comment figures from an interesting analysis of comparative taxation in some of the principal countries of the world published by the National Industries Conference Board of New York. In the present circumstances attention naturally focuses on the position in Britain and Gernfany respectively. The figures show that while taxation a head of population has risen in Britain from 25.8 dollars before the Great War to 107.8 dollars in 1938, in Germany the burden has increased from 14.3 dollars to 109.7 in the same period. While the rate in British taxation must be considered in relation to interest payments of the vast National Debt incurred in the Great War, a similar consideration does not apply to Germany, whose pre-war and war-time internal indebtedness was practically extinguished in inflation. This fact, is reflected in the figures for national indebtedness a head of population in 1928—Britain, 10,014.6 dollars; Germany, 192 dollars. Even more significant are figures of taxation taken as a percentage, of national income. For the United Kingdom, before the Great War, the percentage, was 11.1 and this had increased by 1938 to 21.7. But in Germany, where in 1913 the percentage was only 8.9, the Nazi war preparations had carried it by 1938 to 26.2. The Industrial Conference Board’s analysis indicates that per capita taxation and proportion of national income taken in taxation are highest in Germany. Moreover, as The Economist points out: “These figures do not show the actual proportion of the national income appropriated by the Government, for they do not allow for borrowing. which was also probably the highest a head of population in Germany last year.” BIG GUNS IN ACTION ON RHINE FRONT ARTILLERY DUEL LASTS FOR SEVERAL HOURS LONDON, December 16. The Paris correspondent of the British United Press states that , the first big action occurred on the Rhine front. An artillery duel was fought by the big guns of the Maginot and Siegfried lines, which hammered each other for several hours.