IN THE PUBLIC MIND

Auckland Star, Volume LXXV, Issue 252, 24 October 1944, Page 4

IN THE PUBLIC MIND

CORRESPONDENTS' VIEWS

DIRECT TAXATION

(To the Editor) Some comparisons between Dominion and Commonwealth taxation having been made in Parliament recently, the writer's experience of both may be of interest. It amounts to this—that although Federal fa. come tax has increased by ewer 1600 per cent in the past five years, the direct taxation upon a pension of slightly less than £400 is, this year, about £30 less in Australia than in New Zealand, and next year the difference will be about £66 in favour of the Australian taxpayer Here are my figures. A pensioner of an Australian company with an Auckland branch, where I served 40 years, until two years ago I paid New Zealand taxation, both income and security, amounting to about £80 per annum. Then the Federal Commissioner of Taxes came to light with demands for Australian income tax; 1939, £2 19/11; 1940 £22 13/4; 1941, £31 6/10, on the' grounds that my pension was derived from funds invested in Australia. These were paid and a refund obtained from the New Zealand Commissioner of Taxes. Last November, there came another demand, £49 7/ (1942), payable fa December, and then in January, with quite unappreciated abandon, he followed this up with a further demand, £83 4/ (1943), payable in April, 1944. (So this year sees me paying about £134—0r over onethird of my pension—in direct taxation.) On one side of the Tasman Australia pays for the war by a very drastic increase of income tax; over here our own people tax us, for the same reason, to the tune of 1/6 fa the £ (on money we don't get), an. imposition which, being in the form of a "levy," debars us from claim-' 4 ' ing exemption on account of our Australian "income tax" payments. But it's no use complaining—we are not organised. OVER-TAXED PENSIONER.