the Excess Profits Duty from the present rate of 60
to 40 per cent., though even if this amendment were passed he was doubtful if he and his associates could accept the continuance of the duty at all. As reoefitly as April, 1918, Mr. Boner Law, in sub- mitting a calculation to the House, had said that the duty would be continued only until the end of the accounting period after peace, i.e., August 4th next, while the Chancellor of the Exchequer had himself last year denounced the unfairness of the tax in -the most vigorous terms. The mischief of the tax, Mr. Terrell continued, was the datum line. Nearly all the amendments on the paper were directed against its grave inequali- ties. Again, would the comparative yield of the tax be, after all, so great ? :—
" If the tax were withdrawn, the Chancellor of the Exchequer would certainly get an extra E90,000,000 from income-tax ; he would get, he was told, something like E30,000,000 from extra supertax, and he believed something like £16,000,000 from the proposed corporation tax. Then there was the important item of dissipated profits' as the result of this tax. He was told that that sum would not be far short of £40,000,000 or £50,000,000 which was absolutely waste, and was lost to the Treasury. The net amount which his right hon. friend would receive would be something in the neighbourhood of 030,000,000."
The Budget had unquestionably produced a " perfect slump in trade."
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