It was announced in Berlin on Tuesday that a decision
had been taken on the important question of the new Imperial taxation. It is necessary to raise an additional annual revenue of £25,000,000. It is proposed to do this by establishing a partial monopoly of the manufacture and sale of spirits, which is estimated to produce £5,000,000; by an increased duty on tobacco, estimated to produce £3,850,000; an increased duty on beer, £5,000,000; a tax on still wine in bottles, 21,000,000 ; new Death-duties, £4,600,000; taxes on electricity and gas, £2,500,000 ; and a tax on newspaper advertisements, £1,650,000. All these together are expected to yield only £23,600,000. The balance of £1,400,000 will be made up by an increase of the matricular contributions. These stand now, as the Berlin correspondent of the Times says, at the rate of about fivepence per head of the population. They will be increased as required up to a maximum of about tenpence per head. We note that the Press here, in discussing the new Death-duties, assumes that the proposal that the State shall take the whole of the dead man's estate when be has no direct descendants or very near relatives applies to wills. This is clearly an error. The proposal refers to cases of intestacy.
Previous page
