Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 159, August 4th, 1920Various
General
Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 159, August 4th, 1920
Various
English wit and humor -- Periodicals
Mr. CHAMBERLAIN dealt very gingerly with Sir ARTHUR FELL'S inquiry as to
whether "any ordinary individual can understand the forms now sent out by
the Income Tax Department?" Fearing that if he replied in the affirmative
he would be asked to solve some particularly abstruse conundrum, he
contented himself with saying that the forms were complicated because the
tax was complicated, and the tax was complicated because of the number and
variety of the reliefs granted to the taxpayer. It does not seem to have
occurred to him that it is the duty of the CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER to
make the tax simple as well as equitable. Is it conceivable that he can
have forgotten ADAM SMITH's famous maxims on the subject, and particularly
this: "The time of payment, the manner of payment, the quantity to be paid,
ought all to be clear and plain to the contributor, and to every other
person"?
[Illustration: MR. BONAR LAW PACKS HIS TRUNKS.]
The House did not rise till half-past one this morning, and was again faced
with a long night's work. In vain Sir DONALD MACLEAN protested against the
practice of taking wee sma' Bills in the wee sma' oors. Mr. BONAR LAW was
obdurate. He supposed the House had not abandoned all hope of an Autumn
recess. Well, then, had not the poet said that the best of all ways to
lengthen our days was to steal a few hours from the night?
The Report stage of the Finance Bill was finished off, but not until the
Government had experienced some shocks. The Corporation tax, intended
partially to fill the yawning void which will be caused some day by the
disappearance of E.P.D.--on the principle that one bad tax deserves
another--was condemned with equal vigour, but for entirely different
reasons, by Colonel WEDGWOOD and Sir F. BANBURY. They "told" together
against it and had the satisfaction of bringing the Government majority
down to fifty-five.
The champions of the Co-operative Societies also put up a strong fight
against the proposal to make their profits, for the first time, subject to
taxation. Mr. CHAMBERLAIN declined, however, to put them in a privileged
position as compared with other traders, but carried his point only by
sixty-one votes.
_Wednesday, July 28th._--In spite of the limitation of Questions the Member
for Central Hull still manages to extract a good deal of information from
the Treasury Bench. This afternoon he learned from Mr. LONG that the Board
of Admiralty was not created solely for the purpose of satisfying his
curiosity; and from Mr. KELLAWAY that the equipment of even the most
versatile Under-Secretary does not include the gift of prophecy.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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