FALSE ECONOMY OF THE PRESENT INCOME-TAX.
Tim Income-tax produces 5,356,887/.; which shows, says the Morning Chronicle, "that the whole of the incomes of 1501. and upwards, the limit of the tax, amount to something more than 200,000,000/. a year : what a prodigious mass of wealth ! " To say nothing, too, of evasions.
It should always be remembered that there are two points in the manner of imposing this tax, one unjust, the other delusive. The income of 150/. is too high a limit for total exemption, wasting a vast field of available resource for the tax, and, as everybody saw at the time: of its laying on, operating with a curious injustice ; for while the man of 149/. a year pays nothing, the man of 150/. pays 41. 7a. 6d. tax. Represented in the tax itself, the difference be- tween their incomes should be worth 7d. ; but the Chancellor of the Exchequer treats them as if the difference in their incomes were worth 4/. 7s. 6d. : now, as 4/. 7s. 6d. represents an income of 1501., they are assessed as if that were the actual amount of the difference between their incomes, although in round numbers both may be considered as possessing that same income of 150Z., the difference being only 1/. The other point is, the delusion of the title, for although officially called a property-tax, it is really a mere income- tax; property being exempt, and only assessed in some cases as the index of income. The man with an income of 150/. earned by labour, and the fundholder enjoying that income and possessing property besides of that yearly value, are taxed alike.
The 5,356,0001., therefore, is raised in a manner at once unjust and partial ; the greater number of incomes and the general mass of property being exempt. In considering the merits of an income and property-tax, it is well to bear in mind these points in the present form of assessment ; especially when we find the tax so pro- ductive, that, objectionable and limited as it is in these respects, every penny-farthing in the pound produces a million sterling of revenue.
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