DISAPPOINTMENT TO TAXPAYERS

Press, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 25270, 23 August 1947, Page 10

DISAPPOINTMENT TO TAXPAYERS

MANUFACTURERS’ ATTITUDE

(P.A.) WELLINGTON, August 22. “The community has generally been awaiting some material relief from war-time taxation ever since the end of hostilities, and it must be a grave disappointment to all taxpayers that the Government has not made a more serious attempt to reduce the burden which has been carried for so long,” said Mr W. J. Truscott, president of the New Zealand Manufacturers’ Federation, to-day.

“While on the one hand calls for increased production are made almost daily, on the other hand the Government displays no inclination to give incentive to workers and to free industry from the dead hand of war taxation, which has weighed on it so heavily since early in the war,” he continued. “It is appreciated that the Government may feel it is necessary to keep excess money out of circulation by retaining the present taxation levels, but the important point must not be overlooked that high taxation is one of the principal ingredients in the high prices now ruling A determined effort must be made sooner or later, both to bring down prices and to increase production; and no expressions of goodwill or calls for greater effort will meet with a more effective response from the community than the lead which could have been given in the Budget by some concrete expression of the Government’s determination to assist in achieving this end.”