Mr. John M. Taylorasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer (1) what information he has as to (a) how many married men are in receipt of investment income, (b) the total amount of investment income received by them and (c) the amount of tax which is charged on this income;
(2) what is his departmental evidence as to (a) how many married women are in receipt of investment income, (b) the total amount of investment income received by them and (c) the amount of tax which is charged on this income.
§ Mr. MooreEstimates based on projections to 1984–85 from the latest available survey of personal incomes (for 1981–82) are shown in the following table. The survey is of the information on taxpayers' incomes that is available in tax offices. The figures in the table should be treated with caution because of the incomplete coverage in the survey of non-taxpayers, and of investment income that is exempt from tax or on which liability to basic rate tax is satisfied, for example, by deduction at source or under the building societies' composite rate arrangements.
Estimates of income tax for each column of the table have been calculated by treating the corresponding amounts of investment income as the top slice of the couple's income.
550WKingdom for 1982–83 and some earlier years, excluding Government net lending to nationalised industries and the market and overseas borrowing of nationalised industries and some other public corporations, for which figures are not at present readily available. The term "identifiable expenditure" refers to expenditure which can be identified from official records as having been incurred in a particular country. Identifiable expenditure thus excludes expenditure on defence, overseas and other services which are incurred on behalf of the United Kingdom as a whole. In the data underlying the following table, total identifiable public expenditure represents about 80 per cent. of the planning total, excluding the components of public corporations' external finance mentioned above.
Investment income Married men Married women Married couples Numbers with investment income (million) 5.1 2.0 5.3 Amount of investment income (£ billion) 5.4 1.6 7.0 Amount of income tax (£ billion) 1.9 0.6 2.4