THE NEXT BUDGET.
[To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.]
Sra,—The Chancellor, in opening the Budget, is reported as saying :—
" Now I turn to Inland Revenue duties. I propose no alteration in the rates of Income Tax or Super Tax. In the past two years the rate of Income Tax has been reduced by 25 per cent., with a total relief to the Income Tax payer of £.86,000,000 a year. The main part of this immense relief has gone to the pockets of the wealthier portion of the community. Those tax-payers have had their just share of previous reductions, and should expect no more relief this year. I must not be understood to imply that I anticipate the permanent maintenance of a 4s. 6d. Income Tax. What I mean is that so far as concerns the relief I can afford to give this year there are other tax-payers whose claims I must prefer."
These remarks have attracted little notice, and yet they may well be significant. For what is their natural meaning but that, if he should have an opportunity of presenting a Budget next April, the Chancellor has it in mind to make some reduc- tion in the Income Tax, if not in the Super Tax also ? Indeed, one is led to suppose he was thinking of both these taxes, not only by the general drift of the passage, but also by phrases like " those tax-payers " and " the wealthier portion of the community." A reduction in Income Tax or in Income and Super Taxes would appreciably. add to the sacrifice of revenue involved in his present proposals. At the same time the Government, we know, is committed to various plans, for which it would seem, in the common opinion and also by the Chancellor's admission, there is not enough money already. How, then, will the money be found ? The present is " a Free Trade Budget." Is it easy to resist the conclusion that next year, if the Government survives, the Chancellor, in spite of his own past record and the record of the Labour Party,
HAROLD P. Coolie.
Clevelands, Lyndetoode Road, Cambridge.
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