SALES TAX.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIX, Issue 228, 27 September 1938, Page 12

SALES TAX.

EXCHANGE RATE.

PROMISES UNREDEEMED.

MR. MXRRITT TAKES FIELD,

Opening his campaign as the Nationalist candidate for Auckland East at the Methodist Hall, Calliope Road, Stanley Bay, last night, Mr. H. T. Merritt at the outset made it clear that he had no animus towards the Labour party. Where the Labour party's policy fitted in with the traditions of British freedom and justice he was sympathetic with it, he said, but where it conflicted with those traditions he became distinctly hostile. And he felt that the Labour party's policy had arrived at the point where a continuation of it would mean the death knell of British freedom and justice. Promises Not Kept. Going on to criticise his opponents' programme. Mr. Merritt pointed out that just prior to last election, Mr. Savage had said that taxation was overdone. Yet the taxation had gone up in N'ew Zealand, with him as Prime Minister, from £25,470.000 in 1936 to £37.01*2.000 in 1938. an increase of nearly 50 per cent in three years. Mr. Savage had said' that taxation ought to come out of the pockets of the people l>est able to pay. Still the fact remained that last year only 25 per cent of the taxation was by way of income tax, while the rest was by way of indirect taxation, and by direct unemployment tax, which came out of the pockets of the common people. The candidate pointed out that the Labour Government had made a pledge to remove the sales tax, and the exchange rate, both of which they had declared against, but when they were in power they did not keep the promise to remove these taxes. Voices: They found it hard to do.

Mr. Merritt: Then they ahould no\ have condemned these things before they knew what they were talking about.

He added that so far a« the exchange rate was concerned the Minister of Finance no doubt found that when he entered into the guaranteed price scheme ho cither- had to give up his scheme or keep the exchange rate.

Failure to Redeem. It had heen said by members of the fJovernment that there waa no unemployment now, yet the figures released only six weeks ago showed that there were dependent on the unemployment fund a total of 45,050 persons. Of course there was unemployment. If not, why was there an unemployment tax?

Then again, the Government before election, promised houses for the workers costing to be let at rentals of 12/ to 16/ a weekT What had the Government done? They had had erected State houses costing £1000 to £1200, and which were let at 25/ to 35/ a week. The speaker had made it his business to visit the poorer part of this electorate, and had asked people there why they did not apply for State houses. He was told that such houses were not for them, they could not afford the rentals asked. There was, too, the question of how the Government activities on* the market had tended to increase the general cost of building to the detriment of the community in general. By making promises which It had not redeemed this Government had forfeited its right to be the governing body in New Zealand, he added. "Social Security Babble." "Let us look at this Social- Security Bill, this great dazzling bubble which has just been let loose on the election sea," continued the candidate. It was an excellent idea, he said, but we did not want this scheme. Even the people who promoted it didn't seem to want it very much. It had taken them three years to produce, and the candidate gave it aa his definite belief that the bill as it stood would never be put into effect. Later, he added that he felt this because he felt that the Minister who had proCnded it would not return to the ise as a Minister. There were one or two carious features in it. For instance, a young man of 21 years getting £5 a week would have to pay 1/ per pound a week direct tax, in addition to another 1/ a week for each pound earned in indirect tax towards the fund. He would really have to pay 10/ a week to the fund, which, compounded at 5 per cent interest for 40 years, would mean a contribution of £3160. Vital statistics gave the average ago of the individual in New Zealand aa 70 to 71 years. Consequently that man was justly entitled to £315, or £6 a week for the 10 years of his life after 00 years, but would receive only £78 a year, and the surplus would not go to his next of kin. Ifew Fields of Taxation. Altogether the benefits of the scheme were very elusive. In making allowances for the relief of unemployment in the scheme's financial adjustment £1,500,000 per annum was set down, but even now the amount required for such relief was shown by the returns to be £5*377,000. Then again, the health section of'the scheme had not the backing of the medical profession, and without that the success was very questionable. The fund for the scheme should be made a sacred trust and should not be administered from the Consolidated Fund of the country, for this placed it at the mercy of any profiteering or improvident Minister who might happen be in charge of it in 20 years' time. The .social service scheme of the Government, too, definitely opened new fields of taxation in suggestions that from workers under 20 years of age £200,000 might be obtained, from domestic workers the sum of £75,000, from other women £225,000, and from Pensioners £550,000. These were entirely new taxes. |

The Nationalists, said Mr. Merritt, accepted the fact that a national superannuation scheme was much to be deHired and they submitted a scheme winch provided the greatest amount of Sr i*v? * 5 I J" b,ic with due'regard to benefit *"**'* t0 PBy '" B " ch

With the inception of an interjection £„ W"| t,e ea ,-! y Btaßea of the meetinjr, which speedily subsided under a plea by the chairman, Mr. E. Aldrtdse i°„H 'ij&'J* 7 ,eeth, S w « «"»eriy' •nd enthusiastic. It concluded with a. practically unanimous vote of thanks and confidence from the audiene* of W. tw«ra UOLmkUO ' j