Budget Proposals — Income Tax.

Part of Orders of the Day — Ways and Means. – in the House of Commons at on 1 May 1919.

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Photo of Sir John Marriott Sir John Marriott , Oxford

It is a matter of fact, and therefore I ventured to state it as a fact, but I am very much obliged to the hon. Member for his endorsement even of a fact. You will pro rata diminish your Income Tax yield. That is not all. Has the hon. Member also taken into account that you will pro rata diminish your yield from those Death Duties to which so many people are attracted? You cannot have it both ways. You cannot conscript the same capital both during the lifetime of its owner and also after his death. If you take it in the form of a levy on the capital of the living, you cannot take it in the form of a levy on the capital of the dead. You much choose between them. You cannot have it both ways. The Committee may think that I am venturing on rather a double-edged argument in this respect. I am sorry not to see in his place one of the leaders of the Opposition who spoke first this afternoon (Sir D. Maclean). He was very much attracted by the argument that after all there is no difference in principle between a levy on the capital of the living and a levy on the capital of the dead. He argued that if you can levy this tax upon the capital of the dead without any injurious effect upon the revenue you can levy it on the capital of the living. I am perfectly prepared to admit that is quite true if you accept two assumptions: First of all, that man is a purely rational animal, and, secondly, that everybody dies simultaneously.