Sra,—If there must be a tax on capital with con-
sequent disincentive to thrift, is it not rather ridiculous to call £20,000 'wealth'? I suppose that £20,000 today equals about £5,000-£6,000 in 1939, and I can assure you that that was not 'wealth.'
Besides, if the tax starts off with £20,000 as 'wealth,' before long that figure will be reduced to £15,000 and then £10,000, and no one will think it worth while to save at all.
Can the economy subsist if no one saves?
Moreover, in so far as- one's capital consists - of savings which have already been savagely taxed as income it is surely unfair to tax them again as capital?
What one has inherited has, of course, already been subject to death duties.
As a retired professional man living on what he has saved and what he has inherited (in amounts about equal) I consider the future rather bleak.
I do not know if you are willing to answer ques- tions, but in case you are, here are two:
(i) For the purposes of the tax is it likely that spouses' capital will be aggregated in the same way as income?
(ii) is it likely that an annuity would be deemed as, at any rate, partly capital?
86 Henley Road, Ipswich A. I. ALDOUS
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