COMPANY PROBLEMS.

Auckland Star, Volume LXX, Issue 30, 6 February 1939, Page 8

COMPANY PROBLEMS.

An insight into the difficulties which Sew Zealand companies face in taxation charges is given by the statement of the chairman of the Auckland Gas Company to shareholders to-day. In Great Britain incomc tax charges to pas companies uveraged a little over three-fifths of a penny for every thousand feet of gas sold. In Australia one company pnid a penny and four-fifths, and another a penny anil two-fifths. The Auckland Gas Company paid ninepence and four-fifths. These figures give a rough indication of the heavy imposts which private enterprise faces in this Dominion. In ten years this one company- has paid well over a quarter of a million in income tax, and it speaks well for the efficiency of the management that in spite of such heavy deductions it has been able to continue to operate in competition with its very formidable competitor, tvhich is free from this tax. There is a slight fall in the dividend rate this year, due to heavily increased expenditure under new awards, but the spirit of enterprise which has always marked the progress of the company has again brought an increase in consumers and consumption which has to some extent helped to balancc the increased costs.