TAXATION FIGURES

Waikato Times, Volume 125, Issue 20991, 19 December 1939, Page 8

TAXATION FIGURES

BRITAIN AND GERMANY AN INTERESTING COMPARISON NATIONAL INDEBTEDNESS (United Press Assn.—nee. Tel. Copyright) LONDON, Dec. 17 The Economist reproduces with comment figures from an interesting analysis of comparative taxation in some of the principal countries of the world, published by the National Industries Conference Board of New York. In the present circumstances attention naturally focuses on the position in Britain and in Germany respectively. The figures show that while the taxation per head of population has risen in Britain from 25.8 dollars, before the Great War, to 107.8 dollars in 1938, in Germany the burden has increased from 14.3 dollars to 109.7 in the same period. While the rate of British taxation must be considered in relatiorrto the interest payments on the vast national debt incurred in the Great War, a similar consideration does not apply in the case of Germany, whose pre-war and wartime internal indebtedness was practically extinguished in the inflation period. This fact is reflected in the figures for national indebtedness per head of population in 1928—in Britain 10,014.6 dollars, and in Germany 192 dollars.

More Significant Figures Even more significant are the figure# of taxation taken as a percentage of the national income. For the United Kingdom before the Great War the percentage was 11.1, and this had increased by 1938 to 21.7. But in Germany where in 1913 the percentage was only 8.9, the Nazis’ war preparations had carried it by 1938 to 26.2. The Industries Conference Board’s analysis indicates that the per capita taxation and the proportion of national income taken in taxation are highest in Germany. Moreover, as the Economist points out, “these figures do not show the actual proportion of national income appropriated by the Government, for they do not allow for borrowing, which was also probably the highest per head of population in Germany last year.”