PAYMENT SCHEME

Auckland Star, Volume LXXVI, Issue 146, 22 June 1945, Page 8

PAYMENT SCHEME

THE WAR GRATUITIES

R.S.A. RECOMMENDATIONS P.A. WELLINGTON, Thursday. Recommendations on the method of payment and assessment of war gratuities were submitted by a special sub-committee to the New Zealand Returned Services' Association conference following the, acting Prime Minister's statement to the Dominion council of the organisation. The committee's report, which received general commendation; led to a, long discussion. With a number- of minor amendments, it was adopted in the form of a recommendation to the Dominion executive as a basis of discussions with the Government. An amendment that all the gratuity be paid out immediately to servicemen discharged from the forces was rejected.

The sub-committee's recommendations were:— . . , (1) That payment of gratuities be made as follows:—(a) Immediately on application to any successful applicant for a rehabilitation loan of any kind, such applicant to have the option of accepting the gratuity or any balance then unpaid in lieu of the loan, or of accepting the gratuity plus a correspondingly decreased loan (b> In all other cases, one-thu'd on discharge or release from active service, one-third at the end of a year from such discharge or release; one-third at the end of two years from discharge or release. (2) That all payments of gratuities be exempt from taxation of any kind. (3) That payments of gratuities should not be taken into account as income for purposes of assessment of social security or war pensions eligibility. (4) That the gratuity payable in respect of servicemen dying on active service overseas be calculated on the baais of a minimum of four years' overseas service- and be paid to his personal representative. (5) That the gratuity of a serviceman returned to New Zealand medically unfit and who is subsequently discharged by reason of that unfitness with medical grading 3P or corresponding grading, be calculated on the overseas rate up to the date of his discharge.