The Press THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 8, 1934. Taxation and Public Trading

Press, Volume LXX, Issue 21084, 8 February 1934, Page 8

The Press THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 8, 1934. Taxation and Public Trading

It was reported from Wellington yesterday that the Chamber of Commerce there had adopted a report which recommended that State and local body trading concerns should be taxed on the same basis as ordinary trading companies; and the subject is well illustrated by some remarks of the chairman at the annual meeting of the Christchurch G<is Company. This company last year paid taxation to the amount of £ 14,000, a levy of more than fid on every 1000 feet of gas sold; and its competitors, under public ownership, paid nothing. That is lo say, Die consumer of gas is taxed while the consumer of electricity is let off; yet it would be inaccurate to say that the latter benefits by his exemption. He does not pay in taxes; but he pays the price of privilege, which is always a drag on progress. Every pound which, on an equitable basis, the Government might collect in taxes from its own trading enterprises, from the trading branches of power boards, and from municipal trading departments, but which it lets them keep, is a direct subsidy to inefficiency. And this unjust discrimination and foolish indulgence have been persisted in for years and on every hand. The gas companies of the Dominion, for instance, pay about £ 100,000 a year in taxes. The municipal trading concerns of Dunedin, in 1931-32, made a profit of £60,000, which was not taxed at all. But when the Associated Chambers of Commerce, early last year, protested to the Minister for Public Works against the untaxed encroachments of power boards on the business of tax-paying private traders, his only reply was that his predecessor had "considered the matter in 1931,' without thinking any action necessary, and + hal nothing had changed " materially" since. Obviously it was absurd to tell the Associated Chambers and through them every business man in New Zealand that there had been no material change since 1931—n0 retreat of profits, no advance of losses, no shrinkage of trade, no deepening of anxiety. Certainly there had been change enough to add a new argument to the case presented by the association. But it is a case that needs no strengthening, for it is unanswerable on the first ground—and least of all to be answered by quoting a previous wrong answer. What the Minister for Public Works said in 1931 is no more to the point—probably much less to the point—than what Mr Gladstone said in 1884. The point is that private enterprise asks only for what ought never to have been denied or taken away—equal conditions. It does not want privilege for itself or hobbles upon its competitors. It seeks nothing but even terms where it is in competition with the State or local bodies. Gladstone would never have dreamed of infringing this right. But the New Zealand Government stands for the infringement as if it were the first principle of justice.