Parliament Our Parliamentary Correspondent writes : The event of the
week has been a revolt upon an unusual scale against the Government's proposal to subject the undis- tributed profits of Co-operative Societies to Income Tax. This was not wholly due to the intensive pressure of the societies on Members of Parliament, for other interests have found before now that this kind of propaganda does more harm to their case than good. Members were rather influenced by the belief that the Government's proposals were both impractical and dangerous. A National Government exists in order to do unpopular but necessary things, and the argument of political inexpe- diency may be disregarded. But it is not at all clear that the proposals will bring in revenue. If the societies dims 3 to increase their trade discount at the expense of their allocations to reserve, they will escape the tax since the " divi " is exempt ; and if they do this it will not be long before the private traders who have pressed for the tax will be clamouring for the repeal of a tax which merely intensifies Co-operative competition. Again the pro- posals involve a change in Income Tax law and its assess- ment upon a corporate entity instead of only upon individuals—a highly undesirable innovation.
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