§ SIR EDWARD SASSOONI beg to ask Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer whether he will state the amount of income-tax received during the fiscal year now closed en profits and income resulting from investments abroad, the amounts on which the tax was received, discriminating between those earned in foreign countries 1398 and those from British Possessions; and whether there has been any increase or decrease as compared with the figures of the previous year.
§ *MR. LLOYD-GEORGEIt will be seen from pages 216–7 of the 50th Report of the Commissioners of Inland Revenue, that it is impossible to give any complete figures of profits and income resulting from investments abroad. The gross income from abroad brought under review for income-tax purposes, so far as it can be identified in the statistics of the tax, amounted in 1906–7 (the latest year for winch figures are available) to £79,558,000. The corresponding figure for the preceding year was £73,899,200. Information is not available with regard to the other points raised by the hon. Baronet.
§ SIR EDWARD SASSOONMay I ask the right hon. Gentleman, arising out of the reply he has just given, whether these £5,500,000 increase in the profits earned from capital placed abroad does not represent a capitalised sum of £150,000,000 in one year, and whether he views without alarm the increasing tendency of British capital to seek investment in foreign countries, with the resulting contraction of employment at home?
§ *MR. LLOYD-GEORGEI should have thought the hon. Baronet would know that the figure does not represent so large an increase of capital invested abroad. It represents, to a great extent, very largely increased returns from investments.