“DISINHERITANCE THREAT”

Press, Volume XCVII, Issue 28702, 27 September 1958, Page 9

“DISINHERITANCE THREAT”

View On New Death Duties

The Budget presented by the : Minister of Finance, Mr Nordmeyer, in June can mean disinheritance to many farming families throughout New Zealand, says the 58th annual review of Pyne, Gould, Guinness Ltd. “With balance of payment difficulties and other troubles, increases in direct and indirect taxes were inevitable and New Zealanders would have accepted these with a .good grace up to the point where they were necessary,’’ the review states. “It is another story, however, when, it is felt that the tremendous increases imposed are being used to meet the election bait of £lOO rebate of income tax which cost about £2lm and a further increase in social security and child benefits of £ 28.4 m. The total cost of social security has now risen to more than £94m, which would seem to be a burden too great for a country with a population of only 2.5 m. “We headed this column ‘disinheritance,’ because this is what the new death duties can bring about. This particularly applies to stations and sheep runs which cannot be subdivided and also to many other one-man farms. In other cases selling off part of a farm to pay death duties may well be crippling, especially where there are several sons hoping to carry

“In spite of the good times of the last seven or eight years, many farmers still have large overdrafts with their stock firms and banks, also mortgages—in fact many of the most progressive have the higher liabilities. This development was essential to New Zealand but the cost, together with the additional stock required, plus high taxation, gave little opportunity to reduce liabilities—in fact the reverse was often the case. How then is the farmer with a mortgage and overdraft liabilities to pay, say, another £lO,OOO or more in death duties? The answer is, of course, to sell the farm—a poor reward for a lifetime of hard work and progressive farming.”