A—s

189

25 April 1907,

CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER : It would strike at the very root of our income tax law, and that is the difficulty, you see; logically it , would go tremendous lengths. Mr. DEAKIN : Are you not introducing a difference between earned income and not-earned ? CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER : As regards small incomes. The De Beers Company under no possible stretch of the imagination could come into that category. Mr. DEAKIN : Individual shareholders might. CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER : They can get the benefit of the law. Mr. DEAKIN : I wanted to get that, because of your recent Budget distinction between earning and not earning. CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER : That was not the point of my remark; the point of my remark was totally different—that,in England under English law income tax is payable by everybody resident here on profits wherever earned. The question whether a company is resident here is a question of fact, as you know as a lawyer, to be determined in each particular case, and if it is once held that either a natural or an artificial person is resident here, then you sweep the whole of his earnings into the net and within the ambit of the law. That has always been the position of our income tax law. Of course there is another way of giving a relief to the De Beers Company, but I daresay it would not commend itself to you, Dr. Jameson. Dr. JAMESON : What is that I CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER: That the Cape Colony should not tax it. Dr JAMESON : I think the De Beers Company should, perhaps, be taxed more than it is for the benefit of the Cape Colony. lam going to put some more on them this year when I go back, and therefore I am very anxious that whatever is to be plucked out of them I shall get for Cape Colony and not pass it over here. CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER : I quite understand, and thoroughly sympathise with you, if I may say so. lam afraid you must leave that now for the moment. I need not say I will carefully bear in mind all you have said. . . , mM Mr. Deakin, which of your resolutions do you prefer to take first« Mr. DEAKIN : I think the profit on silver. CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER: You have our memorandum ? Mr. DEAKIN : I have. Dr JAMESON : Before you leave that other point, Mr. Asquith, this is more or less a private Conference, and some of us would like if you would

Double Income Tax.