TAX EVASION

Auckland Star, Volume LXXV, Issue 180, 1 August 1944, Page 4

TAX EVASION

When communities permit wrong methods of taxation to be imposed, then many difficulties arise. For instance, in Australia the Commonwealth officials are confiscating the bank accounts of people who are .in arrears with their income tax. It is an inequitable tax, anyway, because the honest pay up to the hilt and those with easy consciences can avoid paying their due quota. Gladstone, the greatest Chancellor of .the Exchequer Great Britain ever had, said that the income tax "would make England a nation of liars." The result of all this prying into people's affairs is that thousands are not entrusting their funds to the banks. In Australia it is estimated that £100,000,000 in notes has gone out of circulation. Here in New Zealand the same thing is happening, because the banks are staggered by the way £50 and £100 notes have disappeared. Owing to the Government refusing to allow savings banks to give a reasonable rate of interest, people are just storing their money in all sorts of places. As long as the country adopts methods of taxation which violate economic and moral principles, then people cannot be blamed for trying to circumvent these irregular methods. G. M. FOWLDS;