TAXATION IN FRANCE

Taranaki Daily News, 18 July 1933, Page 14

TAXATION IN FRANCE

MAKING IT ALL CLEAR. RAILWAY COMPANIES IDEA. Hitherto one of the most attractive features ,of. life in France has been the elaborate care taken to help people to pay taxes without noticing, that they were doing so. There is income-tax,.it is true, but a' huge proportion of the Treasury's i resources is .unobtrusively gathered in by means of indirect levies. This dispensation' will come to an end if the example which has been set in the latest number of the time-table for French railways is widely followed. At the beginning of this “A B C” a table is always printed indicating the approximate price of single and return fares in the three classes for any distance up t 0750 , miles. A : disturbing change has now been introduced. Instead of simply stating the cost.of a ticket for. a given distance, the railway companies have split the charge into its component parts—the change for transport and .the additional sum due for taxation. Thus for a journey of sixty miles in the first class the sum charged by the company is shown as 7s 6d, and that due to the State as 2s 6d, bringing the cost of the ticket up to 10s. If this attempt to draw attention to what are regarded by the railway companies as: crushing fiscal burdens is imitated, French people and visitors to France will soon discover how liberally they are contributing to the Exchequer.