The Sun.
London, England, 1857-01-27 00:00:00

REDUCTION Oil THE INCOME TAX.

( From the Morning Chronicle.)
While the Finance Nlimster withholds any pledges,
and suggests every difficulty, respecting the reduction of
the income tax, her Majesty's Opposition ara lees scru-
pulous. The arrangement which Mr. Disiaali and his
adherents are determined to demand from the Govern-
ment, and willing to Brant if themselves entrusted with
the responetbilitiev of office, is distinctly announced by
the weekly ore,an of that party. Tne terms of that ar-
rangement may be very simply described. They involve
an application to domestic finance of teat con rivance so
often suggested during the war as a solutien to political
difficulties—a return to the status fuo ante. Let the
interlude of war, they propose, be effaced from our
financial system, so far, at all events, as the income and
property tax is concerned. So long as war lasted, the
exceptional demands on our national purse led to a
sudden inflation of this, among sundry other less obnoxi-
ous imposts. Now that peace is restored, we may revert
to our former position, not only by reducing the tariff
of the tax to the figure et which it stood when war
interposed, but by resuming the process of successive
reductions and ultimate extinction, which was interrupted
is March, 1854.
This resumption of anterior engagements is to be de-
manded on the plain grounds of Ministerial and Perlia-
mentery honesty. The Legielature, as our contemporary
observes, is " bland to insist on faith being kept with
the public. The whole scheme of taxation in 1853, estie-
cially as regards the additional taxes imposed"—videlicet
the Succession Duty—" was based upon the assumption
that the Income Tax Abolition Act was a reality, and
that its stipulations would be observed. Whatever m./
be the financial schemes of the Administration in the
coming session, the Opposition is in our opinion bound to
insist on faith being kept with the public, on the condi-
tions of the statute of 1853 being complied with, awl on
the reduction of the income tax to sd. in toe pound,
from the let of April next, with its entire extinction
three years subsequently."
The position in vehicle the tax was left by Mr. Glad-
stone's act, passed in 1853, presents the following fea-
tures. In the natural order of things the tax imposed
would have expired before the end of that year, but the
right hon. gentleman, then Chancellor of the Exchequer,
having on hand some extensive reductions of Customs
and Excise duties, proposed to prolong the income tax
at the existing tariff, and even to extend the area of its
incidence, for two years more—after which period the
rate of charge was to be reduced until the whole tax
dwindled to nothing by 1860. At the same time,
the series of
he suggested a new impost, belonging to
direct taxes, in the shape of a duty on succeg-
loons to real proper:y. From this latter source he
expected to obtain ultimately a revenue of two mil-
lions per annum,
though the full productiveness of
the duty would not be developed for some years ; while
another three-quarters of a million was anticipated from
en extension of the income tax at a tariff of 51 in the
pound to incomes between 1001. and 1501.
These propositions were all accepted by the House.
Duties on soap, tea, stamps, and some assessed taxes
were either removed or abolished, at an estimated sacri-
fice of about 31 miliions of revenue, and about enough
to replace the loss was obtained by the taxes we have
already mentioned, helped out by an additional excise on
British spirits. The actual result teas thee, the net income
of the Exchequer increased more than a million, the sum
accruing in the year ending December 31, 1852, being
53,210,0001., and in the following year, before any
" war taxes" were thought of, 54,430,000/. A he Al
seven years' lease was thus obtained for the income tax,
but upon exhaustive terms. If noaeng had interrupted
the execution of the act of '53, the tariff would have
sunk in April, 1855, to 6d. in the pound ; in April,
1857—the coming April—to 5d.; and have expired alto-
gether in April, 1860, when Terminable Annuities to the
amount of 2,146,0001. a-year will drop ie.
The provisions of this act are suspended merely, not
superseded, by the measures enacted during the war.
The grants of a double tax first, and afterwards of an
additional 21. in the pound, were passed by temporary
statutes, whose powers cease in "one year after the ra-
tification of a treaty of peace have been exchanged." If
Parliament said not a word, therefore, and the Govern-
ment held by their quibble to the uttermost, the tax will
collapse in April, 1858, from 16d. to sd. If the quibhle
is abandoned, this reduction would take place next April,
and in either contingency the impost would expire in
1860, unless home new act can be extracted from the
Legislature giving it a more protracted existence.
Some Ministerial organs have taken advantage of
this circumstance, and atte opt to stifle the present
movement by recommending the public to do no-
thing, for fear of doing harm. Quieta ne movere is
their maxim. To curtail the existence of the " war