Who Pays?
In two respects I find the budget has left a feeling of distaste which has nothing to do with political disagreement. To take the lesser matter first, I think there is a perfectly respectable case to be made for the abolition of tax relief on business entertainment. There is also a no less respectable case to be made against it. The trouble is that the case for abolition has repeat- edly been put with a dishonest bias. It is simply not true, as people keep saying, that 'the taxpayer paid the bill' for business entertainment. At least, it is no more true than that the taxpayer pays the rent of an office or pa ya 'the bill for heating it and lighting it. For one thing, tax relief accounted for only a part of such expenditure. For another, the notion that any money not claimed by taxa- tion is somehow a gift from the state is alarmingly totalitarian. And then there is the more serious matter of the Chancellor's decision to demand capital gains tax from the 'redemption gains' of government securities. This in effect is a breach of the terms of the contract entered into by the Government when it borrowed money. It is offensive to notions of honest dealing. I regret that the British Government's credit has been damaged by this small-minded decision.
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