NEW INCOME TAX.

Auckland Star, Volume LXX, Issue 189, 12 August 1939, Page 8

NEW INCOME TAX.

THE METHODS OF DICTATORS.

(To the Editor.)

It seems to be an extraordinary fact tfcat the Taxation Department should issue income assessments on the new scale of taxes before that scale becomes law. Kor is it any answer that many persons will find it convenient to know exactly what they will be required to pay a considerable time before the actual demand for payment is made. My point tb that the fact that the new scale of taxes should have been issued before the Bud<*et was passed is a striking violation of the principles of democracy. That is a serious statement, but it can be substantiated. If the Labour Government, or any Government docs not wait for a measure to become law before it tacitly enforces it. what is the use of debating it in the House? The financial debate becomes a farce. So far from beine an expression of the will of the people, it ig evidence of as ;rreat a dictatorship as anv which exists in Europe. To have issued those new forms is a small thinjr ir itself: but it i* in 110 degree different in principle from a big thing. To take a hypothetical ca«e suppose the Government were to introduce a measure conscripting all incomes over a certain amount. According to the principle tacitly laid down in the issue of these income tax forms, it would be justified in jroing right ahead witli its conscription without bothering to debate the measure at all. Only a Government with so strong a majority would dare to pursue a course of action like that: and so to use a majority is to assume the rights of a dictatorship. Truly someone has said that there is 110 tyranny like that of misused democracy. VOX POPULL