17 MAY 1919, Page 13

INCOME TAX. (TO THE EIHTOR or THE " gencrAroa."1 SIR.—Not

the least of the Many anomalies in the premnt methods of collecting the Income Tax is that by which an Englishman resident and employed in India or other of our Colonies is, unlike-his happier brother at home, debarred from recovering excess in the case of dividends from which the full amount of the tax has been deducted at the source in this country. We have the authority of Mr. Bumble for the fact that the law is an ass; but that a man, merely because he happens to be in one latitude, should be denied that relief which is his uncontested right when in another, would seem to be indeed the logic of a super-ass. Apart from the absurdity of this unreason, in days when the Income Tax is six shillings in the pound, and may yet be higher, it is a very grave hard- ship for the possessor of an income of a few hundred pounds. with perhaps a wife and children dependent on him, to be deprived of so large a portion of his means. This gross in- justice should be promptly remedied, not only in the interest of those who suffer from it, but from patriotic motives, as the general respect for law and order is scarcely likely to be increased when our rulers raise money by resorting to such shifts. The words "Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's" do by no means authorize Caesar to become a pick-