“PAY AS YOU GO”

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 70, Issue 128, 15 March 1950, Page 2

“PAY AS YOU GO”

MEETING INCOME TAX MR HOLLAND FAVOURS SYSTEM (N.Z.P. A.—Copyright) SYDNEY, March 14. In an article published in the Sydney “Sun” to-day, Trevor Lane says that the New Zealand Prime Minister (Mr S. G. Holland) “hopes to take several pages from Australia’s legislative book in the next few months.” Lane says that, in an interview with him in Wellington. Mr Holland said he was very keen to adopt “pay as you go” taxation. Mr Holland continued: “The Australian system of income-tax payment is as near perfection as anyone could get, but it is difficult to stir up enthusiasm for the system among New Zealand employers. I have a feeling that they do not know what they are missing.” Lane says that the New Zealand Government is seriously considering a - Constitution for t{ie Dominion. He quotes Mr Holland as saying: “Australia’s need for a written Constitution was greater than ours, as at the federation it was necessary to define the rights and privileges of the Commonwealth and State Governments. New Zealand, with its one Parliament, had little need of a Constitution until the Socialist regime showed that rights which the people considered unalienable could be tossed over in a day. “My Government will frame a Constitution, submit it to the people, and adopt it, if they say ‘yes.’ ’ It will contain a clause making future alterations in the Constitution possible only by a further referendum.” PRIME MINISTER’S COMMENT f SUCCESS OF SCHEME IN AUSTRALIA (P.A.) DUNEDIN, March 4. Commenting on the report of his interview with Mr Trevor . Lane, the Prime Minister said: “It is true to say that I have for a long time been a keen advocate of ‘pay-as-you-earn’ taxation, and each time I have been to Australia, where I have been able to study it in actual operation, 'my faith in it has increased. I have spoken to hundreds of people in Australia and I have yet to find one person who pays his taxes as h# earns his income who regards the system as other than a blessing. “It is not the published policy of the National Party to introduce the ‘pay-as-you-earn’ taxation, but I hope, nevertheless, that one day we will have it introduced into New Zealand. “No one in Australia would dream of going back to the old system of paying taxes in one lump once a year. / “Regarding the .question of a written Constitution, the Government is at present considering that very matter. The whole basis of a written Constitution is to avoid the destruction of the democratic form of government by the process of a government passing laws for which it has no mandate. There have been one or two recent examples that make the desirability of a written Constitution all the greater,” said Mr Holland.