The Taxman

Press, 7 July 1977, Page 11

The Taxman

By NEVIN TOPP Let me tell you how it will be There’s one for you, 19 for me •Cause I’m the taxman Yeah. I'm the taxman The lines are taken from George Harrison’s song, “Taxman.” on the Beatles album. “Revolver,” and continues “Should 5 per cent appear too small/Be thankful I don’t take it all.” It was the Beatles’ way of complaining about the heavy taxes they were pa-ing on earnings during 1966. There is a universal gripe against the taxman, and the record industry in New Zealand is no exception. At present, New Zealanders pay the highest sales tax on records in the world — 40 per cent. It was raised from 20 per cent to 40 per cent in May. 1975, by the Labour Government, in the erroneous belief that the majority of records sold in New Zealand were imported and that they appeared to be a luxury item. However, only 3 per cent of records are imported, and it is a bone of contention at present whether records are in fact a luxury item or a cultural item. Indeed, New Zealanders may not have to pay any -ales tax on records in the future (don’t raise your

hopes too high) and in addition those records which are imported may be exempted from the 27.5 per cent import duty at present paid on each disc. It is possible that the tax may just be reduced. New Zealand took part in the nineteenth session of the U.N.E.S.C.O. General Conference at Nairobi, in 1976, which decided to include sound recordings on the same basis as books under the Florence Agreement of 1950. Under the agreement, books and now sound recordings do not have to be certified as having an educational, scientific, or cultural character, or be consigned to approved institutions and organisations. In addition, these are freed from custom duties. At present, only books (which extends from bound books, paperback, and comics) are free from import duty, and the present Government has yet to see fit to lift import duty and sales tax on records.

Most hopes are pinned on the impending Budget. The 40 per cent sales tax is having a serious effect on the New Zealand

recording industry. From January to May of this year, record sales have been below that of the corresponding period for the previous two years. The effect of this has

been staff lay-offs in the manufacturing and wholesaling areas of the recording industry. This applies to the two record pressing plants in Auckland.

However, many would say that the sales tax on records should remain, because they can see no way that records can be classified as cultural in the sense that books can.

I will not attempt a definition of culture, except to sa ythat “we are driven in the end to find it in the pattern of the society as a whole,” (T. S. Eliot).

Thus, the expression of the blues by the Negroes is part of their cultural heritage, and one through sound that has become acceptable in Western music.

Objectors to accepting sound recordings as a cultural medium seem to follow three paths.

The first is financial. Taxmen do not easily surrender sums which have first been gathered — it means looking for alternative sources of income. The second is that records are industrial and not artistic products. Pressing a record once a recording is made is an industrial process. The third objection is that serious or classical music may be cultural, but popular music is not. Recording can now reach an objective existence, by giving the per-

formance a lasting value. For example. “Taxman,” as played by the Beatles, will have a lasting, objective existence as recorded in the way the Beatles played that particular song. And it applies to classical music as well. Music as a known heritage is about 350-400 years old, out of a known Western civilisation of 3000 years. We know that musical instruments existed before Christ, but have little knowledge about how actual songs were played. Thus music is part of our culture for future generations to see how we lived, because it is part of one’s everyday life

And in some cases it is difficult to draw the line between what is serious and what is popular. One can argue that Leonard Bernstein’s “West Side Story” is popular and that the early works of Bob Dylan are serious, in the sense that like Jonathan Swift did for Queen Anne, he held up a mirror to society.

Thus jazz from New Orleans, the blues from Chicago, and the beat from a Liverpool slum are part of the expression of people — living. So it becomes a contradiction. From a luxury we cannot afford, says the sales tax, to a luxury society cannot afford to lose.