THE CONSCRIPTION OF WEALTH.

Taranaki Daily News, 26 November 1917, Page 6

THE CONSCRIPTION OF WEALTH.

America is a land of millionaires and multi-millionaires. Before s the war the national income of the United States represented a contribution of 45s per head on a revenue 'of £210.000,000 but in the United Kingdom the national contribution per head amounted to 82* per head on a revenue of £200,000,000, says an English paper.

The United States has enormous reserves of taxation upon which to draw, as these figures prove and the Senate has not hesitated to inake a bold move to do so.

The American income-tax is to be increased to such a pitch that the multimillionaires, who formerly paid a, tax of £17,000 a year on an income of £IOO,000, are in future to pay £07,000, the nearest approach to the conscription of wealth in the world's history. .The multi-millionaire is in great danger o» being taxed out of existence. His war tax alone for one year is a year's income at S per cent, on a million pounds. When the Senate comes to deal with the lesser lights in the world of riches, it is more tender to them than we are. , Thus the new income tax on an income of £12.000 is £4120, but in America it will be only £IOSO. On an income of £IO,OOO one of the principal Btages in the scale, the rich man in America will pay £2840, while the Briton with the same income is paying this year £5450. It is when America touches the su-per-rich that she comes the nearest to the conscription of wealth. Her £IOO,-000-a-year man will pay £07.000 to the State; our £IOO,OOO-a-year man is pay'ing this year £41,520. The number of the British rich who pay nearly half their income to the State is less than a hundred. Befors the war thev numbered, all told, 74. In (he whole ,of the United Kingdom there are about a thousand persons whoso incomes exceed £20,000 a year. The actual number of persons in this country owning more than a million is between three or four hundred. Each of these is paying from £I6OOO to £84,000 a year in income tax. but there are very few at the latter figure.