Unfair Taxation.

Press, Volume LXIII, Issue 18923, 11 February 1927, Page 8

Unfair Taxation.

: Both of the Auckland papers comment i sharply, if briefly, ou rhe complaint made at the bednrvn.- ii tho "•vt.-!: by the Chairman oi.' i.'ireetors c£ ii>-' AuckLvd Gas Cons pan-. This complaint, which •>;!- :n XIIH Press on Tur-.'lj - . • ;»r/ •••Id one. and hccuniis f.-i. r. .-.-ingSy •■xa.-.jieratiiy { ytsi»r by year. :"< M - it i.; quite ti:e ;w the w.v.'.d y.-, tiv.t "•:!;<? •'discrimination ii: taxation c-t domestic •'appliances is !"•- t.'un the •'fact -hat they -axft • !;! ; uut I !;:r. <!uy .•; • ;i'. -"i! e laiiilv .. !»i:;t'.:-r .••miif.v.::. v.-hile the fact ti.a: tln-v ::'.v *:»a:-«i m heavily .iustilics the Urr-''.-'> <lein:iml lor a "systematic, i*- reduction at the next revision of the tariti. But the worst fentnre oi tlie situation is still the gro.-slv imiiist" discrimination against the nrivaH We have said mi much abo'.u tlii- on other occasions that it i- t: i" have to say any of it azain. and yet it is not sale, even with a Tariff Commission sitting, to take redress for granted. So far a.- the Customs are concerned, the evil was <|iiiie well understood when the tariff was revised six years ago, hut it was not terminated. The revision still left the pis industry where it was and gave so substantial a concession to its rivals that they escape duty altogether in many cases, and in every ease get otl much more easily than the suppliers of gas. But tlie worst injustice is that inflicted through the income-tax. In live years the Auckland Gas Company lias paid £135,000 on its income, while the Power Boards have paid nothing, and there is a similar story to tell in every city and town in which private suppliers of power and light, and of power and light equipment, are in competition with Power Boards and Municipalities. Here in Ciiristchtireh we have a situation almost identical with the Auckland one, and in some respects more annoying; but the evil is not confined to the cities only, or to these two rival industries. It exists in every case in wlych private enterprise is competing with trading departments controlled by the Government or by local bodies, and it will be ended only when the public realise that as long as they tolerate it they will have to pay for it. For if the injustice of it is a scandal and a political disgrace, tho consequences of it are economic loss and inefficiency from which no one in the long run escapes. It is amazing that what we are not.willing as a community to do in fairness we will not even do in self-interest.