The most interesting item in the programme is the sketch
of next year's Budget, which contains the promise of an Income-tax. The scheme, which many Finance Ministers, including M. Rouvier and M. Doumer, have advocated, seems at last likely to be put into practice, in spite of the ingrained dislike of the average French- man to this type of impost. As a matter of fact, income is in substance taxed already in France, both under the Patente and the Impot sur les valeurs mobiliCres ; but these are sporadic taxes, and no attempt has as yet been made to tax income as a whole. It is announced that the new measure will discriminate between incomes and salaries, taxing the latter more lightly, which we presume to be another way of saying that the rate will differ for earned and unearned income, as it does in most systems except our own. The rate will also vary according to the size of the income. It remains to be seen whether the new tax will supersede, or be merely supplementary to, such existing imposts as the Patente and some of the taxes on real estate.
