GOVERNMENT BONDS.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIII, Issue 115, 17 May 1932, Page 5

GOVERNMENT BONDS.

PAYING THE SURTAX

SIMPLE PROCEDURE,

NO NEED FOR STAMPS,

Although short notice was given, there was little or no inconvenience when people yesterday wished to cash their Government bond coupons, which aie now subject to a 10 per cent surtax. The number of people handling their own coupons is comparatively small, as , most sensible people simply hand then | bonds to their bank and the interest is credited to their account without any further trouble whatever. Very detailed instructions were issued to the postal officials, and these_ were | carried out without any undue inconvenience to the few people who collect their own interest. Naturally one oi two people, unfamiliar with ordinary business methods, «ot rather mixed, and in one instance a bondholder went to the unnecessary trouble of pasting his coupons until they resembled a page out of a child's stamp allium. There is actually no need whatever to bother about stamps at all if one wishes to negotiate his Government coupon; upon presenting it at the counter of the post office one is handed the interest, minus the 10 per cent surtax, and there the matter ends —no need to lick stamps, make out any form, or get a receipt. Nothing could be more simple. I At the post office the highest value stamp sold is one for £20, and for anythin- in excess of that one has to go to the Stamp Office in Court House Lane. There it is necessary to make out a requisition fwrm, as the office customarily deals only with large values. This system has been evolved for very good reasons, and is quite familiar to business people. There was onl"_ one sale o stamps at the Stamp Oflice yesterday, and three inquiries; while this morning there was only one additional sale. For the small investor, the one who does not put his transaction through a bank, the simplest method is to take his coupons to the post office and receive the cash direct over the counter without going to the round about way of buying stamps and fixing them on the coupon.