Income Tax Accounts and How to Prepare Them. (Sir Isaac
Pitman and Sons. 2s.)—This book contains directions for the preparation of Income-tax returns, the most important details being naturally what deductions may and what may not be made when the net amount has to be calculated from the gross profits. The directions refer to commercial occupations. Literary incomes might have had a few paragraphs. A merchant who lives in the country cannot charge the cost of his season ticket. How about the author who has to consult books accessible only in town ? Can he deduct for increase of rental owing to the necessity of having a study ? Possibly not, if he ever smokes a pipe in the room. The Income-tax Acts are not perfect, and probably never could be made so. Here is a hard case. A earns 12,000 and pays, at the rate of 9d., £75; B earns the same, but having £100 settled on him, pays £105. Here is another. A news- paper which we will call X has been turned into a company ; it pays at the rate of a shilling; another, called Y, has not been so converted, and pays at the rate of ninepenee.
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