Wages and taxes

Press, 28 May 1981, Page 16

Wages and taxes

Sir,—Tax relief is useless to .g those on' low incomes, and ! freezing wages means auto- ■ matically cutting pensions, tied to average pay. Pensioners . have had their incomes effectively reduced already by the removal of relief on telephone rentals, while the rebate on > rates, soaring faster than infla- | tion, is now virtually non- | existent with’ the maximum qualifying income being held at '■ an unrealistic level. The $25 rates rebate on the 1.R.5 is useless to those on such low incomes that tax is already more than cancelled out by single income and young family claims. Also there is the ( indirect cut in inepme for all except exporters by the creeping devaluation of the New Zealand dollar. Pension cuts would be unacceptable as policy, but the effect is as real as under the evil Forbes-Coates coalition which gave birth to the National Party.—Yours, etc.,

VARIAN J. WILSON. May 27. 1981.

Sir,—ln an economy where I wages are now a .minor part of f the cost of consumer goods it ' no longer seems realistic to try to control the economy by ; freezing wages. It could well be that wages have so little effect on the general economy ' that we must look somewhere i. else for the causes and effects ; we still persist in blaming on j wages and salaries. It would j seem that a tax concession instead of a wage increase is an empty gesture. A tax cut is a tax cut, not a crafty transfer from one section of taxpayers to another to hide an over-all , increase in taxation.—Yours. ■ etc.,

JIM TIMINGS. May 26; 1981.