FINANCIAL FRONT

Evening Star, Issue 24287, 31 August 1942, Page 2

FINANCIAL FRONT

BRITAIN FIRM AND STRONG CHANCELLOR THROWS LIGHT ON TAX INCIDENCE (British Official Wireless.) (Rec. noon.) RUGBY. Aug. HO. “ Britain’s financial front stands firm and strong and has made a vital contribution to" the war effort,” said Sir Kingsley Wood in a speech at Dundee. This" front, he emphasised, was based on the heaviest possible taxation, borrowing at low interest rates, and the utmost saving. Small savings since the beginning of the war amounted to £l, 500.000,000. The Budget of 1941 had increased by 4,000,000 tho number of persons on' smaller monies liable to direct taxation, and there wore to-day some nine and a-half million .wageearners and others with small incomes who were making a direct contribution to the war of some £270.000,000 a year through income tax. The weight of taxation to-day. he said, was such thatif wo wore to take away every penny of income above £2.000 from those whose incomes at present exceeded that sum tbo gain to the Exchequer would be only about £30,000,000. It was estimated that the number with incomes between £I,OOO and £2,000 had fallen since 1938 from 155,000 to 105,000; those between £2,000 and £4,000 from 56,000 to 30,750; those between £4,000 and £6,000 or more to 80. The Chancellor also mentioned that during the last war the rate of interest on war loans increased from 5 to 6 per cent., but in this war we bad not paid more than 3 per cent., ami the successive issues had been made on even more favourable terms to the Treasury than their predecessors.