§ 56. Mr. T. WILLIAMSasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether he will state the average income per head of taxpayers in the United Kingdom for the years 1913–14 and 1933–34, respectively, and the estimated income per head of the total population for the same two years?
§ The FINANCIAL SECRETARY to the TREASURY (Mr. Duff Cooper)The hon. Member will find estimates of the actual income coming under charge to Income Tax in the years stated in Table 56 and Table 40 of the Annual Reports of the Commissioners of Inland Revenue for the years ending on the 31st March, 1924, and 31st March, 1934, respectively (67th and 77th Reports). But I must point out that actual income includes the undistributed income of corporate bodies and there are no statistics showing how much of the income goes to individuals so as to enable figures cf average income to be given. Moreover, the exemption limit of the Income Tax is now much lower than before the War and the average taxpayer's income nowadays is therefore not fairly comparable with the average before the War. As regards the second part of the question, there are no official estimates cf National Income available for the purpose.