The Connoisseur, Vol. 52

Excerpt from The Connoisseur, Vol. 52: An Illustrated Magazine for Collectors; September-December, 1918 Regarding the first of these points, the Government have simply told us that the duty to be levied is at the rate of twopence in the shilling. We are not informed why they fixed on this amount, and why they are so certain of its appropriateness that they declined to allow their Committee to even consider the question of its modification. The duty imposed by the French tax, on which the English measure has been modelled, is only 10 per cent. Even this in practice has been found excessive. Owing to the diminution in the sale of articles affected by the impost, it brings in little more than a third of the revenue originally estimated. Is it too much to ask our Government to give us their reasons for believing that a tax which has proved a failure in France because of its excessive rate should be a success in England when the rate is increased by 66% per cent. Though not actually within the scope of the Committee's Report, several members have added a recommendation on the second point, printed as an appendix, in which they urge that the duty should not be levied on the whole price of articles not essentially luxuries, but only that portion of it which is in excess of the non-luxury limit. There certainly seems some thing illogical in the Government's original idea, under which the difference of a shilling in the value of an article might increase the cost of it to the purchaser by a very substantial sum. Thus, under the strict letter of the schedule, a horse valued at Ł149 195. Would escape duty free, while one worth Ł150 would cost the purchaser Ł175, the additional Ł25 being the amount of the suggested Luxury Tax. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.