§ Mr. Channonasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer what is the average distance of travel allowed for in his estimate of the cost to the Exchequer of adopting the Netherlands scheme of relief for travel-to-work expenses.
§ Mr. Robert Sheldon,pursuant to his reply [Official Report, 2nd November 1976; Vol. 918, c. 560], gave the following information:
690Wappropriate of the deductibility of such contributions for income tax purposes, in each of the nine member States of the EEC, in the case of a married couple with two children and earnings of: (a) the United Kingdom average or its foreign currency equivalent in the country concerned, (b) twice the United Kingdom average or its foreign currency equivalent in the country concerned and (c) three times the United Kingdom average or its foreign currency equivalent in the country concerned.
§ Mr. Robert Sheldon,pursuant to his reply [Official Report, 1st November 1976; Vol. 918, c. 479–480], gave the following information:
The figures are as shown in the table below:
The average amount of travel allowed for in the estimate is about 12 miles. This includes the return journey.
§ Mr. Channonasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer what were the estimates he made of the number of income taxpayers who would receive some benefit from an allowance for some proportion of their expenses for travel to work, as outlined in his answer to the honourable Member for Southend, West on 29th July and his subsequent letter; and, of the 691W number of such income taxpayers, how many would be estimated to use public transport i or their journey to work and back.
§ Mr. Robert Sheldon,pursuant to his reply [Official Report, 2nd November 1976; Vol. 918, c. 560], gave the following information:
It is estimated that about 23 million United Kingdom taxpayers would benefit from tax relief on travel-to-work expenses if the scheme of relief was based on the Danish or the Dutch systems. A scheme based on the Belgian system would benefit about 16 million taxpayers; it is estimated that at least 7 million taxpayers use public transport for their journey to work and hack and this number would benefit under all three systems.