DOUBLE INCOME TAX.

Auckland Star, Volume XLVIII, Issue 35, 9 February 1917, Page 6

DOUBLE INCOME TAX.

n (From Onr-Special Correspondent.) V •LONDON, December 29. On Friday, 22nd, prior to leaving for Horn-church. New Zealand Convalescent Camp, Mr. Massey and Sir Joseph Ward reecived a deputation representing various commercial associations. These were the Association to protest against zhe duplication of income tax within, the —Impire, the Association of Chambers of Commerce of the United Kingdom, the London Chamber of Commerce, Australasian Insurance Societies, .. the ■ Royal Colonial Institute, Australasian merchants, banking, shipping, Australasian produce, the timber industry, the development and investment -companies, I ihe mining industry, South Airiean merchants, and the Income Tax Reform Society. Mr. Stanley Machin, the well-known chairman of the Imperial Council of Comtaierce, introduced the deputation, for •which Mr. F. Dutton, acting as spokesman, said the late Chancellor of the Exchequer was not willing to receive a deputation, and they had been put off with a suggestion that the subject was full of difficulties, and would have to be dealt ■with in an Imperial Conference after the ■war. But until that time arrived the taxpayers who came into the higher rate were practically being bled to death and the tendency of investors would be to ! tvithdraw capital from the Dominion. He invited the assistance of the " Dominion Government towards a change 1 of the financial system under which • double income tax is levied on colonial ' trade and incomes. ' Mr. Massey, in reply, said they' were * all agreed upon the hardship and in- 1 justice of the system, and' the sym- ] pathy of New Zealand had been ex- ' pressed in a practical legislative form last year. What" appealed to him was ] the effect a continuance of the present -system would have in the Dominions. ' The difficulty was accentuated by the ' necessity of finding money to carry on ' the war,- but the money -should be collected in an equitable way, and he did not consider the present system was equitable. He welcomed the definite ," statement of the Prime Minister that ' an Impenal Conference would be con- I This duplication of taxation ] -was a matter to which the attention of " the Conference would be directed, and • of he and Sir J. Ward could assist in the object of the deputation, as he believed they could, they would be very glad to do so. •" I Sir Joseph Ward „aid he had made re- ' presentations upon this question to Mr • Asquith and Mr. Lloyd George, and he ' found that the iifficulties appeared to \ them insupeyKe. This gigantic war, imposing ent-mous taxation oh all parts j of the _*ro_iire, supplied every reason for ■ avoiding friction and irritation in raising. t it. It would be his duty to make reprecentations to the present Chancellor of ; the Exchequer upon the formation of a financial system for the whole Empire, j His idea was that the whole Empire '" might by some pooling process share in j the payment of the war loans, possibly ', on a basis oi 60 per cent the Mother li Country, 40 per cent the Dominions. He I ( was fully in accord with the object ofl "the deputation. > I