CLASS TAXATION.

Dominion, Volume 3, Issue 893, 12 August 1910, Page 6

CLASS TAXATION.

THE PENALISING OF CAPITAL. Sir,—Death duties as a mode of taxation are generally keenly objected to hy tnose whose estates are made liable, as triey encroach upon the provision i'or a family on the death of its head, and as tliey strike unequally and on - a small number instead 01 being diffusedas taxes ought.- Moreover, tiioy lire hero even more objectionable as a tax upon capital because capital all along has been paying its quota. In short that they aro a confiscation and an abuse of power. From the report of an interview in respect, of these duties, published in your columns on August 5, Br. Mndlay, in justification, claimed that the tax was nccessary to enforce a fairer sharo of taxation; and he, with equal inaccuracy, asserted that property is left untouched and untaxed throughout the owner's life. Further, he stated that it is only when the wealth .is passing to another that "a portion is taken as revenue. Now by public policy our heaviest Customs duties are raised upon luxuries and upon all that the propertied classes require, or they are inflicted by way of protection to local industries; and, beyond the burden of theso griovous dues, the returns show that a third of our whole taxation is raised from land, income, and other direct taxes paid by the few, and, still further, tliat real property bears in tho main the burden of local rates and taxes.

Surely, then, the Doctor himself was grossly unfair in the reasons he assigns tor the scope of his measure. This is further evident- when one recalls the fact that all the necessaries of life in common use in this country are either its products or admitted mainly "duty free," and henco it follows that no resident content with plain living nsed be taxed to any extent by the use of Custom goods; nor in fact is the bulk of the population so taxed except, upon the drink and tobacco which they consume! The Doctor, in further justification, states that these additional taxes were necessary to provide for education, old ago pensions, annuities, maternity cases, and all other humane * and proper purposes to elevate the people. Is it not more probable that by so. robbing the people of self-reliance and the spirit of manly independence on which the character of a nation is built, that he will degrade the people both morally and physically? Already (juite half the employment in the Dominion is dependent upon the expenditure of moneys borrowed or raised bv taxation, a condition of society which cannot long continue. New Zealand has "ilso already largely ceased to bo regarded as a safo field for enlerpriso, bankers deplore their idle capital and men aro leaving our shores. Surely tho existing position where the individual is restricting employment through a- want of confidence and weariness of continued harass is suggestive and the outlook is far from encouraging.—l am, etc., ANTI-HUMBUG.