The appointment of a Royal Commission to inquire into the
Income Tax ie the first step towards the reform of that great and essential tax, which has unhappily become more inequitable than usual in its incidence under the stress of war. The names of the Commissioners were published on Friday week. Lord Colwyn is the Chairman. Among his colleagues are officials, bankers, men of business, several well-known economists, three Labour Members, and a leading Co-operative official. The Commission are entitled, by their terms of reference, to inquire into the whole subject of Income Tax and Super Tax, and to report " what alterations of law and practice are in their opinion necessary or desirable." They intend- to hear representative witnesses, and not to deal-with individual complaints. The two main objects of the Income Tax reforms must be, &rat, to sim- plify the tax, sweeping away the mass of obscure regulations which the officials alone can interpret ; and secondly, to impose it on all citizens. There must, of course, be a small minimum income on which the tax is not chargeable. Bnt the polity of levying a direct tax on a mere section of the community is undemocratic and must be changed.
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