The Press FRIDAY NOVEMBER 14, 1958. Income Taxes For Local Government

Press, Volume XCVII, Issue 28743, 14 November 1958, Page 12

The Press FRIDAY NOVEMBER 14, 1958. Income Taxes For Local Government

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-*= acted upon without delay. The report has several other recommendations which should re-p the Legislature to help tea? government. Strengthemr.g the finances of the National Roads Board by earmarking a quarter of the addi:nal Is tax on petrol is tcvtously desirable—if the Government can be persuaded :: forgo any part of the tax—especially if the distribution of R.oad= Board funds is made, as one commission recommends, nricuy in proportion to the oad-r.g work done by local oozies. Nor has the commission -ejected to add one more invoice to those which e urged New Zealand’s —e~r oership of the Interna:r.a. Monetary Fund and the « :.-.h Bank, which would ■directly help local body and pnv ute borrowers. T’.e commission also joins the : ■ a line of competent investi- ££• -£ bodies which have f "asised the need, which is u-1 too obvious to need emiti*.. 1 . to rationalise and azr_a.zarr.ate local bodies. It is —-re than a little anomalous .rat a Royal Commission should :e assigned the task of smooth_ng away the financial diffi:«_:ies of local government; -rer no serious effort has been] maze to eliminate the waste = r.z inefficiency inherent in a -r-duplicity of small and often ~®dnndant units of government. 7-e(czmmission points out that -e well-considered provisions -r ref-rm set up under the Z_r«ral Government Commission Am? 1946, were largely frustrated by successive govern- — er.’s yielding to pressure from :re local bodies. “To provide * trtis elaborate machinery for ■ independent and impartial .r.vestigation and decision but t: leave the ultimate decision ’ll a poll of electors seems to ■ _s somewhat farcical ”, says me lts report presents the Government with ar. opportunity to do something -seful in this direction at long last. A Local Government Commission with real power to bring about reforms should be an indispensable condition of the widening of local government’s authority to tax its