§ Now let us consider the out-turn of 1934, and it will only be necessary for me to draw attention to the salient points, because the details are in the Blue Paper which hon. Members have in their possession. I estimated for a surplus of £796,000, but, since the revenue exceeded 1619 the estimate by £9,921,000, and the expenditure only showed an excess of £3,155,000, the actual surplus realised was £7,562,000, a very satisfactory result. It did not prove necessary to use the powers that were given me by Parliament to borrow for the contractual Sinking Funds. The figure of expenditure includes £12,343,000 that has already been spent on the redemption of Debt, and, if we add that to the realised surplus, we see that the real out-turn of the year—that is, the excess of revenue over expenditure other than that applied to the redemption of Debt—was £19,905,000.
§ I come to a few details on the expenditure side. The Consolidated Fund charges show an excess of £519,000, owing to an under-estimate of the sums payable to the Post Office Fund and to the Exchequer of Northern Ireland. The Supply Services exceeded the Estimates by £2,636,000. This figure may seem to hon. Members to be rather low as compared with the amount of £18,000,000 which was the total of the various Supplementary Estimates presented during the year, but it must be remembered that in my original Budget I had already included a sum of £7,600,000 on account of the restoration of cuts, and moreover a sum of £4,275,000 which I had provided for the Unemployment Assistance Board was not required in consequence of the suspension of the regulations. Certain other services also have cost rather less than the provision I had made, so that the total expenditure came out less than might have been expected, considering the amount of the Supplementary Estimates. I do not think there is anything further that requires mentioning on the expenditure side.
§ On the revenue side Customs and Excise yielded £289,696,000, which seems a remarkably close approximation to my estimate of £290,000,000. I ought, however, to remind the Committee that last July, in accordance with a recommendation from the Import Duties Advisory Committee, I reduced the Silk Duties, which involved a loss to the revenue of about £2,000,000. In spite of that, however, we obtained £3,500,000 more from Customs and Excise than we obtained in the previous year. Most of the individual duties came out very close to my expectation. I might, however, just mention a surplus of nearly £700,000 from the duties 1620 on articles coming from the Irish Free State. That was partly due to the new Coal-Cattle Agreement, but the other imports from the Irish Free State were rather larger than I had expected.
§ Inland Revenue gave me £388,500,000, £16,000,000 more than the estimate. That increase was mainly due to Income Tax, which produced an excess of £9,377,000, and Death Duties, which yielded an excess of £5,356,000. I think perhaps a word of explanation is required in connection with these two increases. In some quarters it has been suggested that this large increase in Income Tax proves that I displayed an undue pessimism last year in estimating the profits and incomes which would come into assessment, and, if that were really true, it would, of course, encourage a very highly optimistic view of the future of the tax, but, unfortunately, the matter is not so simple as that. Only £2,000,000 out of this £9,377,000 can be attributed to a greater amount of income and profits coming into assessment than I had estimated for. Of the remainder, £1,000,000 is accounted for by a closer collection of the arrears coming forward from the previous year, while no less than £6,000,000 was due to a reduction in the amount carried forward for the next year over what I anticipated. The fact is that in the March quarter the Inland Revenue collected a record percentage of the tax, and, although that is a striking testimony to the public spirit of the taxpayer and also to the conditions which made it possible for him to fulfil his obligations so promptly, it will be obvious to the Committee that the process is not one which can be expected to recur in future years. As to Death Duties, which are always a speculative item, the increase was due to a rise in the value of securities. A rise of that kind benefits the Exchequer twice over, because, not only does it increase the actual value of the estates, but it also brings them into the range of a higher level of duty. The other Inland Revenue duties included the Surtax, which was up by £1,000,000, and that was due entirely to a better rate of collection; Stamp Duties, which were short of estimates by £1,000,000, but were still About £1,500,000 better than in 1933; and then the £2,000,000 which we got from Excess Profits Duty and Corporation Profits Tax show that the last dying convulsions of these two imposts, once so 1621 vital to us, are still capable of returning a perceptible contribution to this bumper yield of Inland Revenue.
§ The Post Office net receipts of £12,250,000 are below the estimate by £1,750,000, which was partly due to the restoration of cuts in pay, and partly to the surrender of revenue involved in the recent reduction of telephone charges. The Exchequer share of Motor Duties and receipts from Crown Lands came out pretty well according to plan, but Sundry Loans and Miscellaneous Receipts fell short by £4,303,000.