Note 134 — Chapter XII

Income Tax, Schedules C and D (dividends from Government Stocks, public companies, foreign dividends, etc.). The Treasury estimate (as stated in a side-note to the Return) is based on statistics of Estate Duty for the five years ending 1908. But what light can Estate Duty throw on (for example) the dividends collected at the source from British or foreign securities held by Irish banks? Schedule C deals with "Government Stocks, etc.," Schedule D with "Public Companies, Foreign Dividends, etc.," but in the adjustment for "true" revenue no distinction is made between them. Now the Banking Statistics (Ireland) of 1910 show that dividends were payable at the Bank of Ireland on £38,732,000 of Government securities, and that, in addition, a debt bearing interest was due to the Bank from the Government of 2½ millions. Income Tax on these items alone would be £65,000, less rebates; but the whole of Schedule C, which includes Foreign and Colonial Government Stocks, is given in 1909-10 as only £30,000.

No attempt is made to credit Ireland with a share of the profits made by English and Scottish companies through business done in Ireland.

The only reliable items in Income Tax are those of A and B (Land, Houses, and Occupation of Land), where in 1908-09 Ireland contributed about 6 per cent. of the total; under other heads, according to the Treasury, only 3.5 per cent. The writer estimates the true contribution as several hundred thousand pounds more.

Post Office.—The Treasury give no clue as to how they calculate the profit and loss on Postal Services. Figures of letters, telegrams, parcels, etc., delivered in Ireland are known from the Postmaster-General's report, but the report does not distinguish Irish from English postal orders, of which 121½ millions were issued in the United Kingdom in 1909-10. There is good reason to believe that a part of the postal profit now wholly credited to England should in reality be credited to Ireland.

Stamps.—Far too little allowance is made by the Treasury for stamps on transfers executed through English and Scottish exchanges for shares bought or sold by Irishmen, and for bonds, deeds, insurances, issues of capital, etc.

Tea and Sugar.—The Treasury base their calculation "on quantities inter-changed between Great Britain and Ireland in 1903-04," and I learn from the Inland Revenue Department that by this means the consumption per head of the population was arrived at, and that the present official figures are based on the assumption that the relation of consumption per head in Ireland to consumption per head in the United Kingdom as a whole has not altered since 1903-04. The unreliability of this assumption is manifest. It is probable that the heavy additional duty on spirits has raised the consumption of tea in Ireland more than in Great Britain, and the figures of Imports compiled by the Department of Agriculture seem to confirm this view.