The Gold Export Tax

Press, Volume LXXI, Issue 21580, 17 September 1935, Page 10

The Gold Export Tax

The reply by the Minister for Finance to the deputation which waited on him and the Minister for Mines to ask-for the abolition of the gold export tax was satisfactory to the extent that he readily admitted the tax to be unsound in principle. Unfortunately he was not inclined to carry his reasoning any further than this. If the gold export tax was abolished, he said, the Government must either budget for a deficit or increase some other tax; and in the circumstances he was not willing to make any promises. It is surely a little unfair to argue, at a time when the Government is in a position both to reduce taxes and to restore wage cuts, that the gold export tax, which yields a mere £ 100,000 a year, will make the difference between a balanced and an unbalanced budget. No tax at present levied in New Zealand acts more directly as a drawback on industry than the gold export tax; and if the Government is, as Mr Coates claims, " anxious to reduce costs " in the form of taxation " this is the first taxit should consider abolishing. The efforts of the Minister for Mines to strengthen the case for the retention of the tax merely served to underline the absurdity of the Government's attitude. The gold mining industry had been assisted " through the Unemployment Board "and through grants to companies"; and he went on to hint that there was a possibility of further grants. Where is the sense in subsidising an industry with one hand and subjecting it to a particularly onerous tax with the other? The probability is, to judge by the tone of the Ministers' remarks, that the gold mining companies will be disappointed in the budget. Nevertheless, they would be wise not to abandon their case, now that its justice has been officially admitted. Tax remissions are not necessarily confined to the budget.