War each penny in the pound income tax brought in a million sterling.
At the present time, each penny in the pound income tax brings in
nearer two millions sterling, but the productiveness of the tax is
much interfered with by the large remissions now allowed, and
subtractions which take effect just where the contributors to the tax
are most numerous, say from L100 to L300 a year. I therefore reckon
that, without remissions, the tax of sixteen-pence in the pound down
to L156 a year would produce about L30,000,000, and that the tax down
to L52 a year would about produce the rest. The _total_ income that
income tax is now levied on is nearly L600,000,000. We need not be
surprised at the productiveness of the income tax. A man of L10,000 a
year pays tax on that. But he has a steward on L300 a year, he is
worth to his firm of lawyers L100 a year, and so on: these pay income
tax on the L300 and the L100 over again. When the income tax is
carried down to incomes on L1 a week, the tax will be levied on the
same income over and over again. Even a spendthrift with L10,000 a
year usually scatters more than he actually destroys.

Lastly, It has not been overlooked that there is an income tax now:
and if the whole proceeds of the sixteen-pence income tax were used
to fill up the deficiency in customs and excise, then we have to make
up a deficiency equal to the present proceeds of the income tax. This
might be done (to start with) by the National Property Rate now to be
suggested. But the expectation is, that with Universal Free Trade,
and the tremendous stimulus thereby given to commerce and
manufacture, the National Income would rise with a bound, and that in
two or three years a much lower rate than sixteen-pence income tax in
the pound would supply the amount of all the indirect taxes
abandoned.