Tax Increases

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31362, 6 May 1967, Page 12

Tax Increases

Sir, Depression events seem to be recurring. The remedies to be adopted can again only accentuate the malady and the patient become worse. The cure should be to expand, not to contract, credit, using our Reserve Bank. Money should be created at cost (i.e., for nothing) to finance increased production for export. There is no need to increase taxation, nor to borrow money, which is only the costless expression of the nation’s combined productive enterprise, not gold, and nothing the banks have. Meanwhile, the only speech which could have shone a little common sense on the problem was rudely postponed and thousands of listeners disappointed.—Yours, etc., C. E. CULLEN. May 5, 1967.

Sir,—lt is with a feeling of shame and disgust I write this letter. What have New Zealanders become over the last few years of an affluent society? A nation of greedy, selfish, spoilt people. The reprehensible behaviour of the thousands who on Thursday night queued for petrol was disturbing, to say the least, and only to find that some unscrupulous garage proprietors had already increased the charges even before the measure had been passed in Parliament Some garage proprietors were quoted in this morning’s issue as being disgusted with this sort of greed. Were they disgusted with the public’s behaviour or with the fact that they would not be able to sell the thousands of gallons of petrol in their storage tanks at an additional profit? If people have enough ready money to buy so much extra petrol, and cigarettes as well, without any warning, surely they should be able to afford the extra tax.—Yours, etc. HONEST GEORGE. May 5, 1967.