§ Mr. Newtonasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will publish in the OFFICIAL REPORT the latest available figures for the United Kingdom, each other member of the EEC, Norway, Sweden, the United States, Canada Australia, New Zealand and South Africa, respectively, showing the annual yield of death duties or comparable taxes as a percentage of (a) total taxation including local rates or other local taxes,
Death Duties as Percentage of: Country (a) Total taxes including social security contributions (b) Total taxes excluding social security contributions (c) Central Government taxes excluding social security contributions (d) Central Government direct taxes (e) GNP United Kingdom … … 2.0 2.3 2.6 4.7 0.82 Belgium … … 1.0 1.5 1.6 3.5 0.36 Denmark … … 0.3 0.3 — — 0.13 France … … 0.5 0.8 0.9 3.4 0.18 Germany … … 0.2 0.3 0.3 0.7 0.07 Ireland … … 1.5 1.6 1.8 5.2 0.47 Italy … … 0.7 1.1 1.3 4.5 0.21 Luxembourg … … 0.4 0.5 0.6 1.0 0.13 Netherlands … … 0.5 0.9 0.9 1.5 0.23 Norway … … 0.2 0.3 0.4 2.7 0.09 Sweden … … 0.3 0.4 0.6 1.6 0.13 U.S.A. … … 1.7 2.1 2.7 3.3 0.46 Canada … … 0.9 1.0 1.8 0.8 0.29 Australia … … 2.6 2.6 1.1 1.7 0.70 New Zealand … … 1.4 1.4 1.5 2.1 0.40 South Africa … … 0.7 0.8 0.9 1.5 0.13 Notes: (1) For countries in which local as well as central Government death duties are levied percentage (c) and (d) have been based only on central Government death duties. (2) In National Income Statistics death duties are not normally classified as a component of direct taxes. But for calculating them as a percentage of direct taxes it has been necessary to add them into direct taxes. (3) For some countries not all taxes are allocated in the published statistics to central or to local government. The percentages of central Government taxation calculated omit unallocated taxation and are, therefore, a little on the high side.