Le Nord : revue internationale des Pays de Nord - 01.06.1944, Blaðsíða 286

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LE NORD
in question was so great that the income-tax returns as a whole
must be at least 15 per cent. too low.
As a matter of fact the taxation on income and capital is
a deficient instrument, but the percentage losses of the public
purse have no doubt been decreasing, because the officials have
gradually become better qualified, and the rules of assessment
have become stricter (for that matter the deficit might be high
enough). The taxation authorities, however, fail against the
violent pressure brought to bear by the present fiscal legislation.
It is obviously a fact that the height of taxation is directly pro-
portional to the tendency towards evasion. In the fiscal year
1943—44 (there is no later statistics) the sum of taxable incomes
amounted to 5.63 milliard Kr. and this amount presumably cor-
responds to a total gross income of about 6.6 milliard Kr. If,
however the latter was to have been 7.7 to 7.8 milliards, if
stated correctly, and the corresponding taxable income would
be about 6.5 milliards, indeed, this is rather a serious matter.
The above mentioned average percentage of taxation, it is true,
thus is reduced from about 30 to about 25, and so the taxation
during the years of war is not quite so oppressive as it looks,
but this gives no great joy to those tax-payers who have be-
haved in a strictly correct manner (voluntarily or under com-
pulsion). In return the dishonest ones succeed in getting off still
cheaper, and they may do a particularly good stroke of business
if they belong among the higher tax-payers. This appears from
a simple arithmetical process. Let us suppose that half of the
taxable income stated fully corresponds to that actually earned
by the tax-payers in question. Then the rest must in fact have
concealed an average of 30 per cent. of their incomes, as the
loss in the whole amount of income cannot otherwise, as pre-
supposed, be 15 per cent. Now the truth probably is that the
income-tax returns of people with fixed salaries are not faultless
either (small extra profits are forgotten), and so it is hardly
probable that half of the income-tax returns should be quite
unimpeachable. This, however, does not preclude that some few
bold people among those in favourable positions (chiefly in-
dependent tradespeople) may go not a little further than a re-
duction by 30 per cent.
The demonstration of this deplorable fact provoked a vivid
discussion of remedies and expedients, which gave the taxation
authorities increased moral courage to attack the offenders, but