BUSINESS AND TAXATION

Dominion, Volume 29, Issue 228, 23 June 1936, Page 8

BUSINESS AND TAXATION

While business is being loaded with the extra cost of the Government’s industrial legislation, the thought that it is overdue relief from taxation is perhaps cold comfort, but pertinent none the less. According to the official statement of the public accounts, summarised in another column this morning, the sales tax took out of business last financial year nearly two and a half million pounds. Introduced by the late Government as an emergency measure it has all the appearance of becoming permanent-. The present Government promised relief; but two and a half million pounds is a big sum, and a Government with so many costly commitments on hand may be tempted to postpone abolition on one pretext or another. Unless some kind of relief is granted, business may become depressed. The Minister of Finance was agreeably surprised to find his estimate of revenue exceeded in so many departments; but that was not the case with the sales tax, in which estimate exceeded receipts by £12,399. In other words, although revenue generally has a buoyant tendency, business so far as it is affected by sales taxation is not so brisk as the Treasury thought it was. It is to be hoped the Minister will take due note of the signs. The tax was not of his making, but he would earn warm commendation by removing it.