Mr Holyoake’s Address

Press, Volume XCIX, Issue 29250, 7 July 1960, Page 7

Mr Holyoake’s Address

Sir, —Owing to the 150-word limit I was not able to complete my reply to your footnote. I did not include the 25 per cent, rebate of 1957 because it was repealed and the £lOO rebate was substituted. Regarding your denial of virtual remission, of social security levy I must say my mistake was in not naming the year. Wage and salary earners paid this tax for the 1957-58 year before their pay envelopes were handed out National Government legislation exempted the self-employed from paying until death or until they left the country. If that is not virtual exemption I don’t understand the meaning of the words. We both agree that on the introduction of P.A.Y.E. they paid the levy for the current year. I don’t deny that, but I do say that workers paid during 1957-58 and self-employed were going to be exempted,—Yours, etc., A. F. PALMER

Waimate, July 2, 1960. [Self-employed persons paid full social security tax in 1957-58. The effect of the National Government’s legislation was to exempt these y arsons from paying doable tax in the following year, leaving them in approximately the same position as they would have been if PAY.E. had not been introduced. Actually, the older members of the group, who had been paying the equivalent of wages tax ever since it was introduced, so far from gaining ant exemption. would have had to pay at the end of their lives tax for one more year than if they had been on wages, an injustice perpetuated in the • act passed by the Labour Government Ed, ‘The Press.”]