Tax moves ‘will mean unemployment’

Press, 17 June 1986, Page 2

Tax moves ‘will mean unemployment’

PA Tauranga Government moves on farm and forestry taxation would mean unemployment for hundreds of workers, said the Opposition’s spokesman on forestry, Mr lan McLean, yesterday. He was commenting on the Government’s decision on the Brash committee for farm and forestry taxation’s report, announced on Saturday. Mr McLean said the decision retained the cost-of-bush approach for most forestry expenditure. This meant that the cost of

planting or replanting a block of trees could not be used as a tax deduction Immediately. Mr McLean said it must be locked up in a cost-of-bush account tili that particular block was harvested decades later. “By that time inflation and interest have whittled away the value of the tax deductions till they are of negligible value,” he said. “Forestry is thus effectively taxed on its gross income rather than on its net income. No other industry is taxed on gross income.”