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On the Inequitable Operation of the Property and Income Tax Enactment as regards Life and other Interests; and on the Principles by which Direct Taxation should be regulated
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 18 August 2016
Extract
The mode in which the Property and Income Tax of this country is levied, has created so much dissatisfaction, and is so universally acknowledged to be inequitable, that I am induced to call the attention of the Members of this Institute to the subject, with a view to arrive at some elucidation of the principles upon which direct taxation should be based: being satisfied that there is no tribunal before which the consideration of such a matter could be more properly brought, or where its peculiar features could be more thoroughly and efficiently investigated.
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- Copyright © Institute and Faculty of Actuaries 1852
References
page 213 note * It is proper to mention that additions have been made to this paper since it was read as above.
page 213 note † See the writings of Mr. Peter Hardy and Mr. Ebenezer Erskine Scott on the same subject.
page 214 note * To make this perfectly clear: a property yielding in perpetuity a net annual income of £1000, is worth, reckoning interest at the rate of 3 per cent, per annum, £33,333. Now, whether the former be taxed at £2. 18s. 4d. per cent., or the latter at 1s. 9d. per cent., the same result is arrived at—that is to say, the owner would in either case have to pay a tax of £29. 3s. 4d. in respect of such property.
page 214 note † Of two persons, let us suppose that one has £100 per annum for ten years, and the other the like annuity for ever. The former is worth in present money £853, and the latter £3333, yet both now pay alike; and supposing the tax to cease at the end of ten years, £2480 will have escaped taxation in the interval.
page 215 note * There is no perfectly fair indicator but this:—Of the whole property of the country a certain portion is required by the State; and as the whole is to such portion, so is the property possessed by each individual to his share of the portion required. As my friend Mr. Hill Williams (to whom I am indebted for many valuable hints on this subject) has suggested, it is the premium or per centage taken from the whole, and paid for the protection of the remainder during the given interval.
page 217 note * We may suppose an estate to be worth £10,000; the value to the life in possession being half that sum, and the remainder the value of the reversion. If there be no one else to pay the tax on the reversion, the life in possession must, as at present, be charged with it, but be entitled to recover his advances from the reversioner on the latter succeeding to the estate: as it is, he pays the tax on the whole, and recovers nothing.
page 219 note * The same qualification, viz., tie being worth £50, would be a fair and proper one on which to ground the right to vote.
page 220 note * It will be observed that Schedule C is omitted here, in which, I presume, the National Debt, and an immense amount of other similar property, is comprised; all of it such as would yield the same, or nearly the same, revenue under the proposed change as at present.
page 222 note * The “Form of Account” issued by the Inland Revenue “for the purpose of having the Legacy and Residue Duties charged and assessed,” is as follows:—
It will be seen that this is precisely the “Form of Account” which would be necessary were a proper system of direct taxation adopted. The objections on the score of difficulty would seem, therefore, at once to fall to the ground.