EMPIRE CONFERENCE

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 10267, 20 June 1911, Page 5

EMPIRE CONFERENCE

CABLE NEWS

United Press Association—By Mectrie Telegraph—Copyright-

DOUBLE INCOME TAX.

RESOLUTION WITH I)RAW>

(Received This Morning, 1.5 o'clock.)

LQNDOX. June 19

Sir Joseph Ward's resolution regarding double income tax, and General Botha's resolution on the same subject, and death duties, were withdrawn at the Imperial Conference on Friday. Sir Joseph Ward said he recognised from Mr Lloyd George's explanation at a. sub-conference where the matter was fully discussed, that the proposed change would be so serious so far as the British Government was concerned as to make its acceptance impossible ; but it would be very advantageous if some system could be arrahged to mitigate, or obviate, the. present hardship to income-tax payers. General Botha, said he was disappointed at the little progress made in connection with this question since the last Conference, and he suggested that the Motherland exempt persons with small incomes so long as they resided in one of tlie Dominions. The position might partly be met by extending the principle embodied in the Imperial death duties legislation. If the Home Governmei# was unable to go the whole way, he suggested that where a resident of the United Kingdom invested money in the Colonies, he should pay only the difference between the Colonian and the Motherland's income tax. This would stimulate British investment within the Empire and diminish the amount invested elsewhere.

Mr Lloyd-George stated that the abolition of the double income tax would involve a loss to the British Exchequer yearly, and the amount of the loss would tenet to increase.