§ MR. R. DUNCANI beg to ask Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer if he can give any approximate estimate of the difference to the Revenue if the exemptions and abatements of Income Tax were based on incomes under one thousand sterling a year, instead of two thousand, in this year's Budget.
§ THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER (MR. ASQUITH, Fife, E.)There are no official statistics of individual incomes exceeding £700 a year, and all estimates of the numbers, character and amount of such incomes are very largely conjectural. For the purposes of the Budget, I made the best estimates I could with respect to incomes from £700 to £2.000, but no attempt has been made to ascertain the proportion of those which fall between £700 and £1,000; and, in view of the very large number of incomes in the immediate neighbourhood of £1,000, any conjecture based on such data would probably be very wide of the mark.