BUDGET Taxes Slashed- for Industry, Not Workers

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your Han The "Financial Times' usually a good barometer to the climate of business opinion, said of the budget:

"Mr. Healey appearsto have taken special care to meet the well publicised demands of industry and to reassure it that the Government means business (in both senses) when he talks of an industrial strategy designed to create the right environment for the manufacturing sector and to encourage investment".

The central feature of the budget which lead the Financial Times to make the quite correct assessment is, of course, the plan for huge cuts in workers living standards which is embodied in the proposal for phase two of the pay policy. sends May Day greetings to Day greetings the labour movement. Fight movement. Fi But also very important, though less publicised, is the decision to make permanent, and slightly extend, the 'temporary' exclusion of stock appreciation from company profit for tax purposes which was introduced in the November 1974 budget.

This highly complicated and indigestible change in company taxation criteria embodies enormous cuts in capital's tax bill.

As recent figures released by the Bank of England make clear, without this tax change British capital as a whole would have made losses in 1974 (the latest year for which full figures are available).

Without the concession, the rate of profit after payment of tax would have been - 0.3% (ie a loss of 30 pence for every £100 of capital invested), with the concession the rate was +4.1%.

sends Day greetings to all workt s in the continning truggl for anmalism tion mavE extends Day greetings to all se of the labour nent

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SOCIALIST PR Who Writes......contd from front page. SS, Wednesa 21st Ap

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