1940-01-29 — Page 8

#

YFOR

FOR GIRLFRIEND

BUT

U

TIGER FOR

BEER

Sole Agents:-

A. S. WATSON & CO., LTD.

WINE DEPT.

PROFIT

TEL. 20616.

· BY SEEING THE SPLENDID SELECTION OF MEN'S SUITINGS AT

WHITEAWAY'S.

DURING THIS SALE TIME YOU WILL NOT ONLY SAVE MONEY BUT WILL ALSO HAVE THE SATISFACTION OF KNOWING THAT YOU BUY THE BEST.

WHITEAWAY, LAIDLAW & CO., LTD.

SOLID SILVER

TEA SPOONS

In Sixes and Twelves, with and without Tongs.

GEORGE FALCONER & CO., LTD.

PEDDER STREET.

TELEPHONE 22148.

THE CHINA MAIL, JANUARY 29, 1940.

MIRROR OF WORLD OPINION

SOME FIGURES ON SACRIFICES

should be seen to form part of

the

an equitable whole. Perhaps the ideal way of raising

the revenue from

of a workers would be by means "Fancy taxes" of these different direct tax on wages

Mr. such as varieties cannot thus be relied upon Keynes has suggested (for that is what for more than a very moderate con- his scheme amounts to while the war is in progress). This would permit tribution. Some money-but, again, some simple element of graduation in all probability only a moderate and make it possible to allow for the amount-can be expected to be avail- differing family responsibilities of in- dividual wage-earners. If any such able from the profits of the various tax proved to be either politically or forms of trading in which the indus- administratively impracticable, trial and commodity controls are en- only remaining resource would be gaging. But there is no escaping the something of the nature of a universal basic fact that, if substantially more exclse, with all the notorious regres- money is to be raised in taxation, the sive character of such taxes, burden will have to be laid on the ordinary unexceptional citizen.. How could it be otherwise, since the ma- jor economic necessity of wartime is, by universal consent, to reduce the consumption of the general public? Let us therefore abandon the search for ingenious taxes that somebody else can be, made to pay and ask what we ourselves can pay.

The

None of these are definite and pre- cise proposals for increased taxation. They are indications of the sort of ad- ditional taxation that will be needed if we are to make a serious effort to increase tax revenue by several hun- dred millions a year. Even drastic measures of this kind will not revolu- tionise the national accounts. An in-

to a

crease income tax equivalent standard rate of 10s. in the £ plus still further increases on the middle incomes plus taxation on the wage- earners which took away, on the aver- age, a shilling in the of their in- comes, would hardly raise the revenue to more than £1,500 millions, and the yield of optimistic estimates of Tax is

E.P.T. and of the profits of Govern

That would still ment trading might bring the figure to £1,750 millions. leave a minimum of £1,500 millions a year to be borrowed. The gross sav- ings of the public, at the present rate of taxation, and including all expen- diture on the maintenance and renewal of existing capital, are barely half this amount, Can we safely leave so large a sum to be borrowed?-"The Econo- mist.

are

DOMINION ENVOYS

The first resort is inevitably to the income tax. Can the standard rate be raised above 7s. 6d. in the £7 answer is that the standard rate, al- ways deceptive, has become positively misleading. There is only one sort of standard rate income to which the sans phrase applies, and that is com- panies' allocations to reserve. deducted from dividends at the stand- ard rate, but this is only a convenient first approximation. Dividends merged in the other income of their recipients and the Individual's total payment of tax, if it works out at 78. 6d. in the £ of his income, does so by the purest accident. To propose that the standard rate of income tax should be 10s. In the £ would be to risk a psychological reaction ap- proaching paralysis, But what would be the effect of proposing that a mar- ried man with two children and an earned income of £1,000 should find an extra 25s, a week for the tax col- lector, or that the tax now paid by a childless couple with an unearned in-

Mr. R. G. Casey's appointment to come of £500 should rise by 128. a week? Yet-these would be the effects be Australian Minister to the United of a rise in the standard rate from States brings a welcome increase of 7s. 6d. to 10s in the £. The complete strength to the diplomatic representa- abolition of the standard rate and the tion of the British Commonwealth substitution of a progressive scale of in Washington. Mr. Casey is not only an outstanding figure in Australian rates would add very little to the ad- ministrative cost of collecting the tax politics. He has had valuable experi- of a diplomatic character in and would have the great psychologi- ence

knowledge of the cal advantage that income tax would London, and his no longer be, as at present, much more general international situation is not oppressive sound and appearance than surpassed by anyone in the Common- in fact. The Chancellor would be wealth. Australia as a Pacific Power well advised to explore this possibility, has interests which need representa- It must, of course, be recognised tion in Washington, and, apart from that any increase in the burden of in- the Australian Minister's own inter- come tax must fall with disproportion- ate severity on the middle incomes, if only because there la so little of the large incomes left to tax.. But there is no particular in- justice in this. The British tax system has always favour- ed the middle classes more than either the poor or of their own in Washington and per- the rich. The Colwyn Committee esti- haps other capitals has been mated in 1925-28 that taxes of all sidered by Australian Governments on several occasions during the past few kinds took only 6.2 per cent. of the years. Their decision now to take this income of a family man with £500 step, together with their choice of their a definite a year, compared with 11.6 per cent. first Minister, implies in

compliment to the United States. In for the family man with £150 a year the early days there might have been and 15.2 per cent, for the family man doubts whether the Dominions were with £2,000 a year. In any case, spart rich enough in men with the neces from considerations of equity, the sary qualifications to be able to spare middle incomes are the only source them for service abroad. But as the from which a large increase in the have grown in national status, so they yield of direct taxation can be expect have grown in the capacity to carr

their new responsibilities. Their High

London, Commissioners - in example

ed.

U.S. AND 'FINLAND

if Finland needs acroplanes to survive, the United States should 'see that she gets them at once. For they will serve American interests far better now in Fin- land's Army than in America's.. in the Hartley, -Livingston "Christian Science Monitor."

.

course

with the State Department, it will be an ad- vantage to the British Ambas- sador to be able to keep himself well acquainted at first hand with the Australian point of view. The ad- visability of ap- pointing Ministera

con-

to mention only Mi

It is the more necessary to dwell on the contributions that the rich and the middle incomes can make because Vincent, Massay and Mr. Bruce

matter con- are men who would be distinguish on the sacri- ed in any community. In the callbry to be made by the

will jins

dby

sentatives abroad: th

certainly, no need.

ven with cot

crook of

that'

Pa

Pa

THE CHINA MAIL, JANUARY 29, 1940