FILM TAXATION.

Auckland Star, Volume LXI, Issue 217, 13 September 1930, Page 10

FILM TAXATION.

WO RELIEF THIS YEAR.

GOVERNMENT'S DECISION. STATEMENT BY SIR V. WILSON "LOCK-OUT"—NOT A BOYCOTT. (By Telegraph.—Parliamentary Reporter.) WELLINGTON, this day. Sir Victor Wilson, president of the Film Distributors' Association, informed the "Star" correspondent that he has received a reply Srom the Acting-Prime Minister, the Hon. E. A. Eansom, to his representations that the new film tax imposes a tremendous financial handicap on the business. Those representations, said Sir Victor, had been supported by the fullest information, including accounts audited by a leading firm of Dominion auditors, and they were submitted to a committee comprising the Income Tax Department and Treasury and Customs officials, and a ■cinematograph inspector.

The has now informed Sir Victor that it will consider the question of a further investigation of the tax after it has been in operation for a reasonable time, say, till the end of the financial year.

''There has been a great deal of chatter about boycott," added Sir Victor, "and I take the strongest" objection to that term being applied to this The companies arc anxious to trade and to continue trading , in New Zealand, but the Government has decided on legislation which prevents such trading. Surely it cannot be reasoned that this is other than a lock-out, brought about by the Government, and*- that the responsibility for the damage done to the trade of the Dominion must rest on the Government."

-Reminded of the film exhibitors' support of the request that there should be an investigation of the incidence of the film tax, Sir Victor said the distributors desired it, and would give the fullest facts and figures. "We offered, if tie Government submitted a questionnaire with the very fullest details demanded, that everything possible would be done to supply the necessary information." ;