"REDUCE TAXES."

Auckland Star, Volume LXIV, Issue 150, 28 June 1933, Page 17

"REDUCE TAXES."

DEMAND IN AUSTRALIA i ! GOVERNMENT SHOWS SURPLUS. POSSIBLE ti CTTT » IK" WAGE TAX. (From Our Own Correspondent.) SYDNEY, June 23. Though the recent Premiers', Conference opened .in a rather dubious and gloomy, atmosphere, the tone of the proceedings became much more optimistic toward the close. Everybody was impressed by the large Federal surplus, and though some of the States had made less, headway with their deficits than was desirable, the general impression derived from the discussions and decisions was . that Australia has definitely turned the corner, financially speaking, and that the outlook for the near future is distinctly encouraging. _ It is evident that the process of cutting down expenditure has gone as far as it can be carried just now without danger of serious reactions, and though the Prime Minister, Mr. Lyons, rather indignantly repudiated the charge that the conference was abandoning the! Premiers' Plan, he laid more stress than before upon the need for encouraging investment and increasing the amount of money in circulation. And air these things combined led up very naturally to a general appeal for the lightening of the now almost intolerable burden of taxation. Need of Relief Realised. As the "Sun" remarked last week, "When a Government imposing heavy taxes on everything it can find to tax — land, income, sales, entertainment and entry and export of goods —shows a surplus, it is perfectly plain that the very first persons entitled to claim a share of it are the taxpayers." The Federal Government realises this, and Sir George Pearce in the Senate has already promised that "the whole field of taxation is to bo reviewed" to discover in what way relief can best be given. Of course, the Federal land tax has been promptly exhibited as a "shocking example" of the treatment to which the primary producer is now subjected. Further, it is believed that the property supertax and other emergency levies put into operation by Mr. Scullin will disappear. Also it has been surmised that Mr. Lyons, though ho may feel compelled to leave income tax where it stands, will increase exemptions from primage and sales tax, and may cut down the rate of the sales tax from 0 to 5 per cent. Such remissions and reductions, if they materialise, will, make a jrreat deal of difference to New South Wales finance, for Federal and State finance are closely inter-related, and the greater the revenue raised here for Federal purposes, the less will bo the financial resources available for the purposes of this State. Mr. Stevens, for all his keen sense of administrative economy, knows that some concession must be made. Before he left the Melbourne conference, he announced that he proposed to make a considerable .reduction in the unemployment relief tax on wages,' which now stands at 1/ in the £. Some enthusiasts think cent "cut" is-possible,, ljut if Mr. Stevens can reduce the tax by 3d ; . in the £—25 pet cent—he will make himself extremely popular for the time being. As the estimate of return from this tax for the current year is £7.000,000— representing an average of £10 per head on every wage-earner in the State —there certainly seems to be ample margin for a "cut." And no reductions can be made in other directions without preventing Mr. Ctevens from still further reducing his deficit.

Burden On Business. Whatever happens, it is quite certain that people here generally are feeling the weight of the fiscal burden grievously. The other day Sir Samuel Hordern told the policy holders of the A.M.P. that £822.000 of their money was swallowed up in one year's taxes. The Country Producers' Selling Co. was informed by its directors at the annual meeting that the proportion of taxation to gross earnings had risen from about 18 per cent in 1929 to 43 per cent in 1933. A Sydney manufacturing concern certifies, through its auditor, that for every £100 it. pays in wages and salaries, it pays £30 in special taxes, that it paid more than 11 per cent taxation on total sale/5 for the year, and that for every £100 paid-in dividends to its shareholders it is paying £314 in direct taxes. . _ Many more illustrations might be o-iven of the truth of the statement made by Sir Kelso King the other day that taxation here is. now "a serious interference with industrial and financial progress." Surely it is time for Mr. Stevens to take to heart tho old aphorism that "there is nothing like a decrease in taxation for convincing the taxpayer that he is enjoying the blessings of good government."