COLONIAL PINPRICKS.

Auckland Star, Volume XLIV, Issue 179, 29 July 1913, Page 9

COLONIAL PINPRICKS.

(From Our Special Correspondent.) LOOTDOX, July 11. AcorreepoD-dent of rt London paper has this week drawn attention to one of those annoying little pin-pricks which the Mother Country inflicts upon those •who, for want of a better and equally comprehensive word we in the Old Country—with no idea of pan-pricking—stiil call "Colon-iale." It appears tlia>t a certain Canadian married an English woman, and in his ignorance of what the results •would be, agreed that certain relatives of hi? wife residing in England should act as trustees of the marriage eettkment. He and his wife lived permanently in a place of their own, an-d the bulk of t"h~e securities are foreign, but because the trustees are Englishmen tbe Inland Revenue authorrtirs per6istenily refnse to refund the income tax automatically collected by the London •bank where the securities are deposited. The result is that he has to pay income tax twice over, for the fact that he hae ■paid income tax in Great Britain does not, of course, free him from the still heavier tax abroad.

Tho amount in question being sufficiently large to warrant le-pU action, the Canadian has consulted r-ounsel with a view of taking the cahe into Court, and he i$ advised that h-e has no chance of succeeding so lonjr as the law remains as it bow is, the itrust being a "British trust!"

Comment on such a scandalous state of affairs is certainly not superfluous, but >t is hard 'to find words to adequately expreee onefc opinion -of a state of affairs which permits the authorities at Somerset House to legally annex one shilling and twopence out of every sovereign due to tie Canadian and his wife by -way of interest on his marriage settlement investments.