SALES TAX ON BUSES

Press, Volume LXXXIX, Issue 26985, 10 March 1953, Page 8

SALES TAX ON BUSES

CRITICISM BY BODY BUILDERS DISCUSSION OF REMITS DEFERRED FOR DAY . (New Zealand Press Association) DUNEDIN, March 9. The application of sales tax was freely criticised when members of the New Zealand Motor Body Builders’ Union began their annual conference at Dunedin today. Some sympathy with their remarks was expressed by Mr J. G. Barnes, M.P., at the opening function, and the conference later decided to postpone discussion of remits dealing with both sales tax and the importation of built-up commercial and passenger bus bodies until tomorrow morning, when Mr Barnes will be present. The annual report said that although representations had been made to have the Sales Tax Act amended so that it could be applied equitably to all concerns or persons building bodies on new chassis, no action had been taken by the Government. In spite of exemptions granted during the last six years the amount, of tax collected continued to increase, the report added. “We have not been able to get very far with the problem, but we are still hammering away at the Government to get justice in this matter,” said the president (Mr J. K. Irwin, of Hamilton), in* his annual address. One of the oldest Mr John E. Hunt, of Wellington, raid it was remarkable that although the materials used for ’ the construction of motor bodies were exempt from sales tax, when the bodies were built up they were subject to a 20 per cent. tax. Mr Hunt’s contention that bodies should be built in New Zealand rather than imported was endorsed by Mr Barnes, who said he would like to see no bodies imported into the country which could be made in New Zealand. It was to the of Dominion manufacturers that they could produce bodies which compared more than favourably with their overseas counterparts. He was not the only member of the Government who sympathised with the position of the local manufacturer, said Mr Barnes, and with the present need to conserve exchange funds it did seem logical to have the locally-built bodies rather than the imported product.