LOCAL AND IMPERIAL TAXATION.
LTO THE EDITOR OF THE " SPECTATOR:I
SIR,—I have read with much interest the paper in your number of the 13th inst., headed "The True State of the SuccessionDuty Case," and entirely agree with your statements as to the general bearings of the subject. In your observations, however, on the burdens laid by taxation, general and local, on the various classes of society, I cannot concur with you. I must premise that under the head of landed property, or rather real property, I include houses and leasehold lands. Now it appears to me that you have entirely lost sight of the nature and extent of the proportion of taxation borne by real property in its widest sense, and that on incomes arising from money invested in the funds and other securities, including the numerous trading companies, banks, &c. To give an instance, I will submit my own case and that of my next door neighbour in the street where I am now residing. I am a landholder holding a property in the North of Scotland, the rental of which is 21,957 annually. My neighbour occupies and owns a house exactly similar to mine; her income arising from money invested in various securities is about equal to mine. I enclose a schedule of the burdens on my property for general taxation and local rates and taxes, amounting to 2436 annually, and on the other side a note of what my neighbour pays for general and local taxation, viz., 278. I submit that this is hardly a fair distribution of .the general burden of taxation, whether general or local :—
BURDENS ON RENTAL FROM LAND OF
£1,957.
Income and Land Tax £90 0 91 Clergy Stipends 117 1 10 Repairs of Churches and Manses average of 30 Years 40 0 0 Poor Rates 53 4 2 School Rates Land 20 14 2 County Rates 38 2 9 Road Rate (average) 85 0 0
•
Poor and School Rates, Inhabited House Duty, and General Assessments on House on the Land-. 22' 14 10 BURDENS ON INCOME FROM INVEST. NESTS OF £1,957. Income Tax £48 18 6 Police Rates and Clergy Rate, Road Rate. dm. 16 18 6 Property Tax on House 3 9 0 Inhabited House Duty 5 5 0 Poor and School Rates 3 10 5
£43918 64 £78 1 5
It is, I believe, not generally known that landed, or rather real, property in Scotland supports the clergy, makes and repairs all the roads, and supports the public schools, from all which the ownersof incomes derived from invested money are entirely free.—I am, Sir &c., A SCOTTISH LANDOWNER.
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