GETTING IT BOTH WAYS.

Auckland Star, Volume LXI, Issue LXI, 12 July 1930, Page 8

GETTING IT BOTH WAYS.

The humour of the relations between the State and the bookmaker grows richer and richer. One is accustomed to the State fining the bookmaker with one hand and with the other obligingly providing him with telegraphic facilities, without which his business would be crippled. Periodically racing magnates denounce the bookmaker in strong language; Mr. 'Rowe, for instance, has just said that he is a parasite. The intelligent foreigner might wonder why the State does not pay more attention to these gentlemen. Perhaps the explanation is partly that. the State benefits by their illegal business. The Taxation Department now reveals that they are sources of income tax. The Deputy-Com-missioner gives them an excellent character as taxpayers. It is true that the bookmaker but seldom comes along and' says he is a bookmaker and wishes to be taxed, but are.there not a good many dodgers in other professions.? When, however, a bookmaker is fined in the Courts the Department calls on him, and apparently the subsequent proceedings are quite amicable. Once he is discovered, the bookmaker never stoops to deceive. He behaves like a gentleman and is treated as such. He is not penalised for making late returns, and the amount he has paid in fines is deducted from his profits. It has been said, with regrettable cynicism, that fines on bookmakers are license fees and advertisements", we know now that they are also notifications to revenue hunters —like the "There she blows !" of the whaler. The public must .-not imagine, says the Deputy-Commissioner,.-that the Department is hand in glove with the bookmaker. Of course not; they merely walk arm in arm to the Treasury, exchanging, possibly, anecdotes and cigars on the way. The Government. is to be congratulated on the skill with which it extracts the utmost revenue from the community's passion for gambling. It taxes the totalisator, fines the bookmaker, and takes a share of his profits. What more could it do •?