DiO. - H. S. CARSLAW. 
There is no doubt whatever that the legislators who 
passed these Acts had very little idea of what the schedules 
meant; and the various changes in the wording of the 
clauses since 1915 have made the position no clearer to the 
average man. The curves of the second and third degree 
(See Appendix, Schedule II, (b) and (c)) are a byword 
throughout Australia. 
Of course the truth is that the idea of a continuously 
changing rate of tax—even the linear rate—is a difficult 
idea. Those without a knowledge of the Differential Cal- 
culus cannot be expected properly to grasp it. And it 
should surely only be in the last resort that a system of 
taxation is imposed, involving principles which the majority 
of the taxpayers cannot be expected to understand. 
§ 7. It seems, therefore, worth while to repeat what I 
have already said elsewhere, (‘‘“Sydney Morning Herald,”’ 
May 2, 1918), that a simple progressive tax on the lines of » 
the First Schedule, as described in §4, could quite easily be 
substituted for this complicated and most unsuitable 
scheme. The substitute which I have proposed is as 
follows :— 
Schedule II.—Income derived wholly from Property:— 
(i) When the whole taxable income does not exceed £3800, the 
amount of the tax on a taxable income of £a shall be (3 + —o EY 
pence. 
(ii.) When the whole taxable income exceeds £3800, the amount 
of the tax on the first £3800 shall be £498 15s., and every pound 
over £3800 shall pay 5s. 
Schedule III.—Income derived partly from personal exertion 
and partly from property:— 
The amount of the tax shall be that for the whole taxable 
income under the scale given in Schedule II., less the sum by 
