ON THE AMOUNT AND DISTRIBUTION OP INCOME. 193 



Classes 27 and 28. Dealers and Employer-shopkeepers. — The 

 17,000 dealers may be taken as paying income-tax. There are left 

 194,000 shopkeepers, including here 5,000 transferred from the Civil 

 Service, see p. 180. The only information we have bearing on shop- 

 keepers is the assessed value of residential shops, and the income-tax 

 surveyors, of whom we have inquired, maintain that the assessed value 

 of a shop has no relation to the income as a shopkeeper, though, in 

 fact, the two or three estimates they reluctantly made were practically 

 identical. It is assumed in the Income Tax Act that in the case of a 

 residential shop one-third of the assessed value should be counted as 

 residence; also it is generally assumed that rent is from one-eighth to 

 one-tenth of income for incomes of about 150/. If we make these 

 two assumptions together we find that the assessed value of a resi- 

 dential shop, 50Z. , corresponds to an income of 160Z. , and it is not 

 improbable that the number of shopkeepers who reside at their shops 

 subject to income-tax is equal to the number of residential shops 

 assessed at 601. or more in London, and 501. or more in other parts 

 of the United Kingdom. In the Fifty-third Eeport of the Commis- 

 sioners of Inland Eevenue, p. 93, we have the necessary particulars, 

 except for Ireland ; taking the number for Ireland as equal to that for 

 Scotland (738), we find about 80,000 residential shops in the United 

 Kingdom above the limits of assessment named. To these we should 

 add a small number of non-residential or ' lock-up ' shops. We 

 suggest 80,000 + 30,000 as the number of shopkeepers paying tax. 

 There remain about 230,000 assessed at between 201. and the values 

 named. Of these, about 114,000 would (from the census figures) 

 be employers, and 116,000 on their own account, if all employer-shop- 

 keepers had shops assessed at over 20Z. There would remain about 

 2S0,000 on their own account assessed at less than 20/. Without 

 depending on this assumption, we will take it that the employer-shop- 

 keepers average between 70Z. and 150Z., and those on their own account 

 between 40/. and 140/., for the averages are by assumption under 160/., 

 and these people make a living, and if in Class 27 employ others. 



Class 25. — If reference is made to the table showing some detail of 

 the employers in manufacture, &c, it will be seen that many are in 

 quite a small way; in particular, blacksmiths, those producing clothes 

 or food, some builders, some engaged on rivers, and some engaged on 

 roads (a heading which includes small cab-proprietors), will easily 

 account for about 30 per cent, of the whole of the class as not paying 

 income tax. We may suggest 208,000 ± 60,000 as paying, and 

 93,000+60,000 as not paying tax, and assign to these latter the same 

 income as in Class 27. As regards these very uncertain estimates in 

 Classes 25 to 28, it must be remembered, as already stated, that we 

 know the total of those paying income-tax approximately, and it is only 

 a question of distributing them among the right classes. If we have 

 taken too many in Class 27 it will follow that we have taken too few 

 in Class 25, and so on. The range of income assigned, for those with 

 less than 160/., is, it is thought, wide enough to cover the uncertainty. 



Class 29. — Shap assistants. — We have three different returns, one 

 covering 15,000 shop assistants, with an average of 61/. per annum in 

 cash, one from quite a small group of special firms, covering 1,900 



