§ In the present emergency, I think the Committee will agree that tax increases in this interim Budget should be simple, straightforward, and capable of being administered with the least expenditure of manpower. I have, therefore, ruled out for this Budget, but not necessarily for future Budgets, all elaborate schemes, of whatever kind and however attractive—and some have been suggested to me which might merit that description and might therefore deserve further investigation—which would now involve highly detailed preparation, serious administrative complexities, additions to the staff of the Inland Revenue and the Customs and Excise, or long Debates on complicated clauses of a Finance Bill. Nothing of that sort I have in mind to propose today. Any large changes in the tax structure must wait until the Spring. My aim on this occasion is a comparatively 399 short and simple Finance Bill, and the tax changes which I shall now propose have been framed accordingly. They are designed to bring in a considerable new revenue but they also form, I hope, a balanced whole, not pressing with undue weight on anything which can accurately be described, in these days of austerity, as a prime necessity of life.
§ I begin with the Inland Revenue. I do not propose today any change in the rates of Income Tax, either up or down. In each of my three previous Budgets I have given Income Tax reliefs of a varied character—relief in the standard rate, in the reduced rate, and in the personal allowances, including earned income relief, the child allowance, the special relief for married women's earnings, and the allowance for dependent relatives. In making those reductions I have been anxious to relieve large numbers on whom Income Tax pressed heavily, and also to increase incentive. I should like to go still further in the pursuit of both these aims, and, between now and next April, I shall examine most carefully various alternative methods of readjusting, and lightening in some respects, the taxpayer's burden. I undertake that this shall be closely studied between now and next April. On the other hand, it is essential at this time to safeguard the revenue against being eaten away, with little gain to incentive, by indiscriminate tax reductions.