| Class of House. | Number of Houses. | Class of House. | Number of Houses. | |||
| £20 | and under | £25 | 384,583 | £20 | and over | 1,473,214 |
| 25 | " | 30 | 256,906 | 25 | " | 1,088,631 |
| 30 | " | 41 | 414,663 | 30 | " | 831,725 |
| 41 | " | 50 | 104,949 | 41 | " | 417,062 |
| 50 | " | 61 | 125,051 | 50 | " | 312,113 |
| 61 | " | 80 | 61,498 | 61 | " | 187,062 |
| 80 | " | 100 | 38,898 | 80 | " | 125,564 |
| 100 | " | 150 | 44,953 | 100 | " | 86,666 |
| 150 | " | 200 | 16,563 | 150 | " | 41,713 |
| 200 | " | 300 | 13,649 | 200 | " | 25,150 |
| 300 | " | 400 | 5,207 | 300 | " | 11,501 |
| 400 | " | 500 | 2,416 | 400 | " | 6,294 |
| 500 | " | 600 | 1,187 | 500 | " | 3,878 |
| 600 | " | 700 | 723 | 600 | " | 2,691 |
| 700 | " | 800 | 472 | 700 | " | 1,968 |
| 800 | " | 900 | 323 | 800 | " | 1,496 |
| 900 | " | 1000 | 176 | 900 | " | 1,173 |
| 1000 | and over | 997 | 1000 | " | 997 |
The figures refer to Great Britain only, but the number of income tax payers in Ireland is small, the payment of income tax in that country, in 1908, being but £996,000 out of £31,860,000 paid by the United Kingdom as a whole.
If there were a constant ratio between incomes and rentals, and if every private house contained but one family, the record of houses would be a sufficient clue to the number of income tax payers; but there is no such correspondence, and a considerable proportion of the houses are let in tenements.
In London persons with an income over £160 a year rarely pay a rental less than £30. In the provinces a rental as low as £25 may sometimes represent an income tax payer. Many £25, £30, and even £40, and more houses in London and elsewhere are tenement dwellings. Some notorious London slums consist of houses of about £30 annual value. In West London 6s. a week, £15, 12s. a year, commands two poor rooms.
Some residential shops, etc., not included in the above list, house income tax payers, but usually the well-to-do shopkeeper lives away from his shop, the upper part of which is let to poorer persons.
These considerations make it impossible to deduce the aggregate of income tax payers from the house record, but it is a suggestive fact that in Great Britain there were in 1908 only 1,088,631 private houses of £25 and over. It is clear that the number of persons with incomes exceeding £160 a year cannot much exceed that figure, even when allowance is made for the Irish houses not included in the record.
As we have ascertained from the income tax abatement claims the approximate number of income tax payers between £160 and £700 a year, we are enabled to neglect the difficult relation of small rentals to incomes, and to concentrate our attention upon a simpler and more satisfactory problem, the number of houses likely to be in the occupation of persons with upwards of £700 a year.
It is submitted that persons in the Metropolis possessing an income of over £700 per annum are unlikely to occupy private dwelling-houses of an annual value below £60. Indeed, London householders with incomes below £700 sometimes pay higher rentals than £60. Against this fact we must, however, place the existence of many blocks of flats of high rentals which pay Inhabited House Duty, not per flat, but per block. I think we may balance the one consideration against the other, and assume that the private dwelling-houses in London exceeding £60 in annual value roughly correspond to the number of persons with £700 per annum and upwards.
In the provinces and Scotland rentals are lower, and I think we may safely draw the line at £50, in view of the fact that we are excluding, as in London, all residential shops, public houses, etc.
The number of houses in Great Britain of the classes referred to is as follows:—