The Auckland Star. WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News, The Echo and The Sun. FRIDAY, JUNE 14, 1935. TAXATION.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVI, Issue 139, 14 June 1935, Page 6

The Auckland Star. WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News, The Echo and The Sun.

FRIDAY, JUNE 14, 1935. TAXATION.

For f/te cause that lacks assistance, For the icrong that needs resistance, For the future in '.he distance, And the good'that we vau da.

In 'taxation New Zealand falls far short of Adam Smith's canon that a tax should be clear and plain to the contributor and to every other person. Only those who pay mainly in income and land taxes and local rates are aware of the heavy cost of government to which attention is directed by the Auckland Chamber of Commerce. The great majority pay hy a process which is intended to be painless extraction, but is in its consequences onerous, continuous and inescapable. Customs duties, sales taxes and other indirect levies produce more than half the national revenue in this country. Taking all forms of taxation together, the total levy per head of population has increased over ten years from £12 3/ to nearly £1(3, and, if local rates arc added, from £15 17/ to £17 16/ (1933-34). Why arc taxes so high? A contributing cause is the weakening of control by Parliament. It is a prime duty of Parliament to guard the national purse, but late Budgets, a transfer of power to the Executive, and the failure of the Government to make full annual disclosures of its financial position have undermined authority.

It may be said by the Government that nearly the wholo of the increase in taxation arises -from tho cost of maintaining the unemployed, and that a large part of what the Treasury receives goes to pay interest on the overseas debt, -which has been made still heavier by tho addition of the exchange. Unemployment certainly takes a large sum, averaging nearly £3 a head, but tjiis does not dispose of the need for an overhaul of the tax system* and more economy in administration. Economies in many directions were recommended in the report of tho National Expenditure Commission, but some of the most valuable features of that report have never been discussed in the House. Economy was attempted by thd Government two years ago with some good results, but it was not pursued far enough. There Avas too much disposition to think of it as synonymous with salary cuts and retrenchment when the best fruits of economy are often reaped from departmental reorganisation and the merging of departments in the interests of greater efficiency. Too much waste results from overlapping and duplication of effort. This is «ven more glaring in the field of local government, where reform has been needed for a long time. It seemed that, the present Government had made up its mind to take this hurdle, but it balked and over the past year or so has refused to face it again. So the tangle of local administration remains and grows worse.