§ 47. Mr. DINGLE FOOTasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether the committee inquiring into the taxation of co-operative societies will confine its sittings to London or visit various parts of the country; and whether it will hear evidence from individual societies or from organisations of co-operative societies?
§ Major ELLIOTThis is a matter for the committee itself to decide.
§ 48 and 49. Mr. LEONARDasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer (1), what is the total estimated number of persons who will actually be chargeable to Income Tax in the present financial year;
(2), how many persons who formerly received exemption from any payment of Income Tax by reason of abatements and allowances have been brought into the field of taxation by the recent reductions in such abatements and allowances?
§ Major ELLIOTI am not yet in a position to furnish final estimates of the changes made in the numbers of taxpayers by reason of the recent alterations in the graduation of the tax, but it is provisionally estimated that the number actually paying tax is between 4,000,000 and 4,250,000 of whom about 2,000,000 are persons who did not previously pay tax. 1163 I cannot at present subdivide the 2,000,000 new payers to show how many were previously exempt by reason of allowances and how many were previously exempt by reason of their incomes being below the effective exemption limit.
§ 50. Mr. LEONARDasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will state for each of the five financial years from 1924–25 to 1930–31 the amount received from Income Tax levied upon interest received by individuals from shares in cooperative societies?
§ Major ELLIOTI am unable to furnish any figures for the tax on the interest in question since it is not recorded separately from other sources of income in the Income Tax statistics.