LAND TAX BILL.

Auckland Star, Volume LXII, Issue 118, 21 May 1931, Page 7

LAND TAX BILL.

COMMONS DEBATE.

Tory Amendment Rejected by Large Majority. LIBERAL STANDPOINT. .'Uuited P.A.—Electric Telegraph—Copyright) LONDON, May 20. Mr. Neville Chamberlain moved the rejection of the Finance Bill 011 the ground that it does not provide resources to balance the Budget, that it inflicts hardship on a section of income tax payers, and that it also imposes a new tax which destroys confidence in all land transactions. He said the Government was still silent as to its proposals to deal with the unemployment insurance fund. 011 which the debt was now £83,000,000, and rising at the rate of £1,000,000 a week. The proposed land tax -would have the same effect of reducing house-building, as had Mr. Lloyd George's Act in 1909. The Ministers were working themselves into a frenzy against the House of Lords, but were afraid to tell the country frankly that they were proposing to tax all landowners and charitable trusts. Sir John Simon expressed the opinion that there was a vital difference between the Liberals' land tax proposals of 1909 and Mr. Snowden's present scheme. The former sought to exact a tax on the increment in value when the land changed hands. He failed to see the justification for a flat tax on all land, whatever its use. The President of the Board of Trade, Mr. W. Graham, replying to Mr. Chamberlain's amendment, said the bill wat designed to apply to all sorts of taxpayers. The debt of the unemployment fund rose from £4,500,000 to £37.000,000 between 1924 and 1929, but Mr. Winston Churchill did not relate it to his Budgets. As a result of the experience of the Liberal experiment, Mr. Snowden had sought the simplest land tax scheme possible. Mr. Chamberlain's amendment was negatived by 270 votes to 230.