An Analysis of Government Revenue and Expenditure in ... - TARA

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information which is available is not being utilised and exploited
to the full. There is a need for more public analysis and criticism
of the statistics available. Admittedly, skill is required in economic
and critical analysis but this should be forthcoming from the
growing number of graduates in Economics, Commerce, Statistics,
etc. now emerging from the Universities.
I do not propose to make any extended comment on the principles
which have been adopted in the compilation and analysis of the
data in the paper and will leave this to those possessing more
expertise than I have. There is, I think, room for discussion on
some of the classifications.
Coming to the Tables themselves :—
TABLE I:
It is interesting to see that the taxes on expenditure have grown
from £61 million to almost £76 million, an increase of about 25 per
cent., whereas taxes on capital have remained almost stationary
and taxes on income have only increased by £3 million or roughly
12^ per cent. This is a very noteworthy trend and in an economy
such as ours has a great deal to be said for it. Our economy needs
savings and needs them very badly though they must be properly
deployed. Gifts from other countries are not to be expected and
we must, therefore, achieve these savings either by the ploughing
back of undistributed income or by voluntary savings out of
distributed income. Taxes on income in a developing economy
have an inhibiting and disincentive effect and the trend towards
taxes on expenditure is, in my opinion, very sound. Gross trading
income and investment income, excluding land annuities paid by
the Exchequer, have increased over the period from £10 million
to £15 million, although this conceals a fall in the investment
income from abroad from £1,200,000 to £600,000, due to a repatriation
of securities. This increase of about £5 million, as also the
increase in miscellaneous receipts of almost £1 million, shed a new
light upon the nature of a good deal of the borrowing which has
been necessary. A higher proportion of such borrowing than is
generally thought is self-liquidating and, therefore, less burdensome
to the economy. Taking the receipts in the table as a whole, one
observes the increasing proportion of current receipts to the total
receipts. Current receipts have increased from £109 million to
£133 million, that is £24 million, whereas capital receipts for the
same period have fallen from £32 million to £24 million, variations
in the capital receipts being due to borrowing by some of the
corporations directly from the public instead of from the government.
It is all to the good that these corporations have been able to
borrow directly from the public. When one looks at the expenditure
figures it is significant that while the national debt interest
paid to residents has increased from £6 million to £10 million in
round figures, the interest paid abroad has only increased from £1-7
million to £1*9 million, indicating that our borrowings externally
have been very light. This must be regarded as highly satisfactory.
Borrowing abroad may at times be necessary and desirable, but if
it is possible to accomplish what has to be done by borrowing within