LAND TAX FINANCE.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXVIII, Issue 2710, 14 January 1910, Page 4

LAND TAX FINANCE.

A feature of the English Budget proposals to which little attention has been given is the comparatively small amount which can be raised under the land tax provisions. From the noise that has been made over this section of the Budget one might have been pardoned for imagining that the Chancellor of the Exchequer had intended to obtain the bulk of his revenue by a direct charge upon the land. The actual sum obtained by all these land-taxes is, however, quite insignificant when we are dealing with a Budget of £T62,000,000. According to the revised estimate, the total yield of all the landtaxes—namely, the Increment Value Duty, the Undeveloped Land Duty, the Bcversicn Duty, and the Mineral Rights Duty—-will be £600,000. Out of this £300,000 is to go to the local authorities. The cost of collecting the taxes, which will he borne entirely by the Imperial Exchequer, is estimated for this year at £250,000, leaving a net sum of £50,000 as a final contribution to the cost of old-age pensions and “Dreadnoughts/’ This figure certainly seems to condemn the so-called statesmanship of Mr. Llovd-George in raising a fierce political issue for so small a sum. On the other hand it must not be forgotten that the most enthusiastic supporters of the land taxes have never pretended that the}' are really out for revenue. They look upon the Government land proposals as the initiation of a policy which will make it almost impossible for anyone to own a large tract of land in England.