I was saying I really did not see how any Deputy looking at this question realistically could ask me at this hour of the night why the Canadian income tax, assessed upon a married couple with two children in relation to an income of the equivalent of £1,400, is so very much less than the tax paid here. The reason the income tax here is high is that, first of all, there are in general so few income taxpayers, that such a relatively small proportion of the population pay income tax here.
The next point is, as I have already mentioned, that we are carrying a very heavy superstructure of social and other services which would have to be paid for either out of direct taxation or indirectly by tax upon beer and spirits and other commodities which I remember the Deputy wanted very much more lightly taxed. If we tax this excisable liquor or tax tobacco lightly we have to increase the burden on the direct taxpayer. That is perhaps one of the reasons why there is such a marked contrast between the amount of tax borne by the married couple with two children in Canada and the United States and the amount borne here.
There is, however, a much more relevant comparison which the Deputy might have made and that is the amount of tax borne by a married couple with two children here and the amount which a couple in the same circumstances with the same income would bear in Great Britain. The perspective would be very much better if the Deputy would contrast the position here with the position in Great Britain. A married couple with two children would pay under our existing system £128 15s. Under the P.A.Y.E. system, when it is introduced, they will pay £120 4s. 6d. In Great Britain a similar couple with an income of £1,250 would pay £131 7s. 2d. which in any event indicates that they are not better off than our direct taxpayers here. That is the real comparison to make, not with these distant empires across the Atlantic, not with these great world States but with our neighbours in Great Britain and perhaps some of the countries on the Continent. I do not want to go into that now, but that would give the people a very much truer appreciation of what the position is here than trying to draw their attention to what is happening in America and in Canada. The fact is that far-off fields are green, as we know.
