THE BUDGET AND PROPOSED RETROSPECTIVE -TAXATION OF NON-EXISTENT WEALTH.

Dominion, Volume 9, Issue 2807, 27 June 1916, Page 6

THE BUDGET AND PROPOSED RETROSPECTIVE -TAXATION OF NON-EXISTENT WEALTH.

i>ir,— l am struck, after a careful pei„sal of the Budget, with the tremendous eed of revenue and the imperative Jiauro of tho demand created by the war. 'lie expenditure for war purposes is no oubt enormous. Ten milliona borrowed n<l already spent for the last year, and ourteen millions authorised for the.preent year for war expenditure alone, beides tho trifle of two millions casually hrown in for public works, gives us for wo years only tho colossal sum of wcnty-six millions sterling, adde'd to our lready swollen national debt. Taiaion is inevitable. Wo arc now in the rip of the tax-gatlierer, and iuust_ ab. ept the situation. "We have had our loiiday; through long years of peace and prosperity we have borrowed and spent, jid now wc must foot the bill. And ho Treasurer further warns us that "the onger the war continues the greater rill becomo our annual burden."' This f course goes without saying, and the earning was scarcely necessary. ' Jly object, however, in writing this-is lot to call attention to what anyone cau ead for himself in the columns of the lapors. It is to object to our eniphasisng tho strain of hard times by an esaslerating tax which will press unduly on ertain classes of society. It is not 'right hat the temporary pressure caused by ho war should be made an excuse for iveting inoro tightly the bonds of fcaxaion by oppressive measures. I wisli to protest against ihe proposed etrospeotivo taxation by a 45 per cent, evy on what is called war profits. Such i tax will inovitably be, in a multitude if cases, a taxation of the non-existent; if profits already spent, and which have low vanished. Of these profits it is not ■ight to say that they ought to be taxed tecause they have been squandered in uxuries such as motor-cars, etc., tliough t may be freely admitted that some of t has gono that way; but even in such ases why should the spenders be exposid to tho oppressive penalty of having o find, too often out of empty pockets, 5 per cent, (almost half) of those noneys which have found their way into he coffers of the nation through the ogitiraato channels of commerce? Busiless has been, stimulated, wages of labour ; iid interest on capital have been paid, ,nd why then should tho spenders be >enalised (as if it were a crime to have, pent instead of having saved their irofits) by having to pay—perhaps by a nortgage of their holdings—this opprcsive and extortionate tax? Then, again, there is another class ot itizens on whom this tax will fall with ipprcssivo force. I mean not the man ,-ho "knocks down his cheque" in riotius living, but the thrifty person who ms seized tho opportunity of- high prices ;o make up the leeway of hard times. Such an one will reduce his mortgage or spend his extra profits in legitimate improvements to his home, or investments on his farm of 100 different kinds, but in his ense, equally as in that.of the spendthrift, the hard cash has disappeared, and to compel such an one to produce and pay 45 per -cent, on his war profits would, in many cases, be to do him a grievous injury. But, moreover, expenditure of war pro. fits, whether extravagant or thrifty, is not the only way by which the?o profits may become non-existent. Here is a case within my own knowledge, in which nil the war profits of the past'year (and much mere) are being taxed out of existence by death duties which are worse than the war tax. In this case tho war profits are being taxed out of existence 'by the Stamp Office Department, and are now. by tho Budget proposals, to bo subjected to'a second dose of taxation. Sir, I will not try your patience further at this time. I think I have said enough tx> justify my protest ogainst the confiscation proposed by the Budget, and perhaps even to arouse the attention of some to this proposed injustice to a largo class of tho community.—l am, etc., 0.J.8.