TAX BURDENS

Waikato Times, Volume 125, Issue 20986, 13 December 1939, Page 10

TAX BURDENS

BRITAIN AND GERMANY INTERESTING COMPARISON NAZI WORKERS’ STRUGGLE (ULited Press Assn.—Elec. Tel. Copyright) LONDON, Dec. 11 Although the weight of direct taxation is greater than ever before in British history, the burden borne by individual incomes is not, according to estimates recently made, so great as that under which German workers are struggling. In Britain no income tax is paid by a married man with two children until his income exceeds £3OO a year, but in Germany a married wageearner with two children pays 12s on £IOO of income, £ll 14s on £2OO, and £23 8s 6d on £3OO. A British taxpayer with a similar family and earning £SOO a year pays but little more than one-third of the amount extracted from his German counterpart, and on all incomes up to £7OO the German tax is more than double. On reaching the higher income levels the incidence of the British tax is heavier than the German. A comparison, which is taken at the rate of 20 marks to the pound, is thought by competent commentators to show a large reserve of British taxation capacity, whereas, unless the Government is unfairly taxing working class incomes, Germany must be within a short distance of the maximum direct taxation point. • Christmas in Germany

Warnings against high expectations of Christmas trade are given in the Berlin newspaper Deutsche Allgemeine Zeitung. A correspondent of the paper, after interviewing shopkeepers in Berlin, concludes: “Tables of presents will not be so generously spread, even though they need not be entirely empty.”

It is stated in the “Germany, Day by Day” column in the Times that a large proportion of the favourite Christmas purchases have been restricted by the war. Shopkeepers expect a considerable fall in demand. A course of beauty treatment for the German Workers’ Front has been introduced, called “present-day remedies for cosmetics.” It is designed to draw attention to cosmetics provided by nature instead of by countries cut off from Germany by the British blockade. Lipstick, rouge and powder are replaced by horse chestnuts, rain water and ivy leaves.

The course recommends: “The care of the body should be adapted to war conditions. To use milk for the care of the skin is against the law, especially as rain water is better. Horse chestnuts make a lather, and ivy leaves and potato skins can be boiled to make skin cleansers.” Shoe Exchanges Opened Shoe exchanges have been opened in various German towns. Mothers can take their children’s footwear which has been outgrown to exchange for larger sizes, conditional upon the footwear not being worn out. New footwear is not rationed, but can be bought only with a permit obtained on the applicant proving that he possesses only one pair of footwear fit to wear. Although the German people are assured that there will be no paper clothes, as in the last war, some ol them will soon be wearing clothes madq from potato stalks. A special factory has been established in Thuringia for drying dead tops of potatoes and converting them into cellulose, which, together with cellulose made from straw, will be used to augment Germany’s dwindling supply of textile thread.