§ Mr. Ralph Howellasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer what percentage of average manual earnings was represented by the income tax threshold for a married man with two children not over 11 yews of age in June of each year since 1949; and if he will give figures for 1976, taking into account recent Budget proposals (a) if the 3 per cent. wage increase is agreed with the resultant tax changes and (b) if agreement is not reached.
§ Mr. Robert SheldonThe figures are as follows:
Year Tax threshold as percentage of Year average earnings 1949–50 103.2 1950–51 98.0 1951–52 97.5 1952–53 107.3 1953–54 101.2 1954–55 93.8 1955–56 99.5 1956–57 93.4 1957–58 88.4 1958–59 86.8 1959–60 82.2 1960–61 76.6 1961–62 73.8 1962–63 71.4 1963–64 84.5 1964–65 78.1 1965–66 71.9 1966–67 69.4 1967–68 66.0 1968–69 57.4 1969–70 56.1 1970–71 57.6 1971–72 58.6 1972–73 59.9 1973–74 52.4 1974–75 51.1 1975–76 44.6 1976–77 (a) 48.6 (b) 44.8 Figures of average earnings for June of each year are not available; those used 253W in the calculations are the annual equivalents of average weekly earnings of full-time adult manual males in manufacturing and certain other industries at October each year, except for 1976–77 where estimates for February 1976 have been used, based on the April 1975 New Earnings Survey figures updated by the monthly index.
For the 1976–77 figures (a) assumes that the "conditional" reliefs are implemented in full and (b) assumes that the "conditional" reliefs are not implemented at all.
Gross Income Income after Tax Income after Tax revalued at March 1976 Prices Gross Income required to give Income after Tax as in Column (3) in 1975–76 (1) (2) (3) (4) £ £ £ £ March 1972 … … … 631 621 1,119 1,207 1,035 903 1,627 1,989 1,461 1,201 2,164 2,815 2,026 1,596 2,876 3,910 3,290 2,479 4,468 6,479 March 1973 … … … 631 631 1,051 1,103 1,035 956 1,593 1,937 1,461 1,253 2,088 2,698 2,026 1,648 2,746 3,710 3,290 2,531 4,217 6,022 Column (3) has been calculated using the movement of the General Index of Retail Prices between March 1972 or March 1973 and March 1976