EXCESS PROFITS TAX

Auckland Star, Volume LXXI, Issue 157, 4 July 1940, Page 9

EXCESS PROFITS TAX

OPPOSITION CRITICISM.

"PARTICULAR CLASS FAVOURED." (By Telegraph.—Parliamentary Reporter.) WELLINGTON, this day. Dealing with tbe excess profits tax in his Budget speech in the House of Representatives last night, the Leader of the Opposition, the Hon. A. Hamilton, said the basis of the tax was unspecified. An excess profits tax was introduced in 1916. It was a tax of 45 per cent and was based on a three-year average. It was dropped in 1917- as it proved inequitable and was replaced by a progressive land and income tax with a special war tax on income.

"A high rate of excess profits tax is theoretically desirable in order to bring into the Treasury more booty and to prevent particular individuals or companies from gaiuing too largely as the result of the wartime demand for their products," said Mr. Hamilton,, "but surely a really high yield or even a fairly substantial yield from such a tax would mean that the Government's policy hae at least moderately favoured a particular class, which is not its intention. The Minister says he will take the whole of the excess profits. Ido not' think there will be any. There will be great anomalies in this! Many taxpayers will be caught only on an ordinary increase. This question should be cleared up immediately, otherwise it will stifle many enterprises."