Social Insecurity

Dominion, Volume 37, Issue 276, 18 August 1944, Page 4

Social Insecurity

Sir, —Just prior to the election the Government made a policy announcement relating to State houses, giving an existing tenant the right to nominate his wife, dr a son or daughter, as the next tenant in the event of his death. It was an important recognition of the fact that the family as a whole are virtually joint tenants of the home, and confers security of tenure. The position is quite the reverse,. resulting in increased social insecurity, in many cases where a thrifty couple have secured their own home and built up suflicient capital on which to retire and live carefully. Death duties are on such a high scale today that it is not uncommon to find that the death of one person places the surviving one under financial difficulty. Sometimes the small capital from which income for living expenses was derived is seriously depleted. Sometimes it even happens that the home has to be mortgaged or sold. Is it not a terrible blot on our democracy that the passing of one can place such an added burden on the other? It is time that husband and wife were recognized as a true partnership, and duties on the value "or the home and a reasonable capital should not he payable until the death of both partners. Some means could surely be devised of registering a claim over the property which would not become payable until both people had died. Undue hardship is also sometimes caused through valuing the home at today’s inflated price, which might even be double the sum the couple paid for it originally. Tax plus war-tax on this higher price can hit very hard on the surviving member,—-I am. etc. KELSEY. Palmerston North. August 15.