§ Lieut.-Colonel Liptonasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether he will publish a statistical summary of all claims received and payments made by the War Damage Commission to date.
§ Sir S. CrippsFollowing is the summary of claims received and paid by the War Damage Commission up to 28th February, 1949:
detailed analysis of rent, interest and profits and in particular to show separately company profits, dividends and reserves, profits of private traders, professional earnings and farmers' profits. We also propose, as I announced on 24th February, 1948, in reply to my hon. Friend the Member for Leek (Mr. Harold Davies) to publish the Inland Revenue 95W profits statistics in industrial groups. Publication will commence with the figures for the profits made in 1947 and the information will be published in the spring of 1950.
I appreciate that this time table, which is dictated by the basis of assessment of profits for Income Tax purposes, means that the information will not appear until more than two years after the profits have been made. I am therefore exploring the possibility of producing statistical estimates of profits in trade groups, as distinct from figures of actual assessed profits, with a view to publication about six months after the end of the year to which they relate. I hope very much it will be possible to do this.
Figures for wages in industrial groups already appear in the National Income White Paper. We propose in addition to publish next year an analysis in industrial groups of earnings coming under P.A.Y.E. These figures will relate to wages and salaries combined, as no distinction is drawn between the two for P.A.Y.E. purposes.