23 OCTOBER 1915, Page 15

THE INCOME TAX.

pr. TUN EDITOR OP TUE "ErECTATOR."1 SIR,—Your correspondent "A Surrey Landowner " has pointed out the unfairness of the Income Tax as at present raised from the point of view of the married man with a family. Let me point out the exceptional hardness of the lot of that father of a family if he happens to be a poor country parson, for the country rector is burdened with a threefold Income Tax, having to pay rates and Land Tax also on his tithe income, In fact, he pays Income Tax under that or other names on the same scale as the millionaire. My own case is illustrative. I am the father of six children. My two eldest sons are now officers in the Army, having both, with their education incomplete, obeyed their country's call, and my eldest daughter is a voluntary worker in a hospital. There remain the other three to be educated, but as my modest capital is now practically exhausted, and rates and taxes advance by leaps and bounds, I do not see my way to educate my youngest son as expensively as his two elder brothers whom I have (as it happens) raised to be soldiers. The country owes a great debt to the " sons of the Manse," but it requites it by merciless taxation, which must inevitably in the near future cut off the supply.—I am, Sir, &c., A COUNTRY RECTOR.