DOUBLE INCOME TAX.

Auckland Star, Volume XLVII, Issue 29, 3 February 1916, Page 8

DOUBLE INCOME TAX.

WAR ACCENTUATES GRIEVANCE.

IMPERIAL TRADING HANDICAPPED.

(From Our Special Correspondent.}

LONDON, December 17.

The Finance Bill has now passed the House of Commons without anything having been done to remove the old and undoubted grievance of Colonial and Indian merchants and others with regard to these liabilities here and elsewhere in the Empire for double or even treble income tax. Last Thursday at the Bank of Adelaide London home, in Leadcnhall Street, merchants, shippers and others engaged in Imperial trade and finance !met to protest against the system by ■which money earned in the oversea portions of the Empire and remitted to the Old Country has to pay income tax on both sides of the water. '

The meeting, convened by the Hon. 3". G—Jenkins, sometime Premier of, and ia-ter Agent-General for South Australia, ■was presided over by Sir Westby Perceval, sometime Agent-General for New Zealand.

In opening the proceedings, Mr. JenIcins 6aid that as representatives of the Overseas Empire were likely to visit England in the early part of IDIG, the present time was opportune for talcing eteps to-secure the abolition of an unfair system hy-which income was taxed twice, |md in, -many cases thrice.

tSIENACE JT> COLONIAL DEVELOPI MENT.

" Bir ISVestby Perceval Temarked Uiat nobody concerned with this meeting songhfcTto escape from his fair share ol* "Imperial burdens, but to make people from the distant parte of the Finpire gray double or treble taxes was a poor jetuxn for -their patriotism. Hitherto, ithe Colonial Premiers had riot been "tvery insistent on obtaining relief, one "Seeling that held them back being the of sympathy for people who left ithe Dominions to live in the Old -Country, but now they were beginning 3to> see that a great injury was likely to. be «lone by the double-taxation system. Take the case, of Australia. <6pecral taxation- to-carry on the war was ■toeing levied in every State, in addition •jto the "heavy war taxation in the United "'Kingdom, and people who had to bear loth burdens found it intolerable. The re-,*ult-of system was that capital iwas being withdrawn from the outlying jparis of the Empire, and, unless a -Remedy was applied, would be withdrawn .still further, although it was partieui3axiy necessary for the development ol jonr Dominions, and dependen*n=sV He- moved: —

in the opinion of this meeting, the double, and in many cases treble, income tax inflicted upon residents, firms and companies in the United Kingdom ■who- earn income in other parts of the Empire, is unjust, inequitable, and contrary to Imperial interests—that it will of necessity materially disturb, restrict, and unjustly penalise trade within the Empire, and cause a withdrawal of present investments, and prohibit future investments in the Dominions, whose development will thereby be seriously retarded. That all those present form themselves into a General Committee with the object bf securing a more equitable system of taxing income earned ■within the Empire."

The motion was unanimously, adopted, and. at the instance of Sir Cornthwaite Rason. the following gentlemen were appointed an executive committee to carry out the objects of the meeting: Mr. Henry Bull, Mr. A. Williamson. Mr. Robert Rcid, .Air. \. Cohen, Mr. G. .Sladc. (Mr. F. Dutton, Mr. George Scoles, Mr. J. G. Jenkins. Mr. Gilbert Anderson, Mr. C. C MoCloud, and Sir C. Rason. It w-as resolved to raise a fund and place •it at the disposal of the Executive Committee. Commenting on the proceedings at the Bank of Adelaide, the financial editor sol the "Times" says: — "The meeting of protest may seem a ilittle belated. But we have so frequently drawn attention to this cause of complaint that we can only hope that the meeting may be useful ln making future action more effective. The resolution passex.' shows bow keenly the injustice oi" the present situation is felt. The heavy increase of taxation, due to the war, under nil the Governments of the Empire, has accentuated a grievance which even in peace time called, in our opinion, for redress. But in this matter, as in others which are the result of lack of due co-ordination in inter-Imperial finance, the Empire suffers from the still undeveloped state of oi.r Imperial machinery. The war. even, on its financial 6ide, is making many things practical in inter-Imperial relation* which formerly were only visionary dreams, and it may be necessary before long to devise more adequate machinery, us part oi the Imperial system of government, for dealing with such problems. At present this liability to multiplied 1 taxation, due to conflicting claims from the different centres of Government, operates as a serious handicap on Imperial trading, and, apart altogether from personal injustice, weakens the Empire just where it ought to be strong."