TAXATION FALLACIES.

Dominion, Volume 2, Issue 583, 11 August 1909, Page 8

TAXATION FALLACIES.

Sir,—Dr. Finillay is reported to have said at Foilding on Friday last that "it was a fiction of the wealthy' classes; that if you take'from the. wealthy by. taxation or. otherwise, you necessarily reduce ■ the fund they devote to wages, and so the workers suffer." Is it therefore untrue :l that if a man lias £20 in his pocket, and you take £5 out of it that he only has £15 left to spend? Surely it is idle to suppose that the person from whom it is taken will be just as well off as before, or will be able to expend the same amount in labour. Either directly or indirectly his expenditure must employ labour, and he has less by £5 to expend. Necessary revenue must be raised, and all will agree that taxation, should fall on the rich, rather than the poor; it-is not necessary 'to'use such a false argument in its favour. Last year one of our wise Ministers was reported to have said that the'low price of. wool did hot matter, because it was only the rich fow who would suffer. I am afraid he was a false prophet, or how is it that there, should be so much unemployment? . _ , The fashion of the day seems to ■ be« to teach that taxation is really a first-rate thing if it is only put on to the backs of the other follow. It iB quite lost sight of that if' you tako it out of the pockets of any class of the community, the community as* a whole is so much the poorer.—l am; etc.. W. J. BIRCH. , Marton, August 8.