TAX EXEMPTION

Dominion, Volume 37, Issue 282, 25 August 1944, Page 6

TAX EXEMPTION

The plea made in the House of Representatives by Mr. Acland, M.P. for Temuka, for greater taxation relief for the family man in the middle income group, was endorsed yesterday by the chairman of the Dominion Settlement Association, Mr. A. Jjpigh Hunt.

The present system of income tax exemption on account of children was grossly .inequitable in its operation, he said. A man with a wife and three children, earning £338 a year and putting 10 per cent, of his income into insurance, received an effective income tax exemption of 1/2 a week for each child. For a man earning £lO-10 a year, but otherwise identically situated, the effective exemption was 5/1 a week for each child, and for a man earning £5OOO a year it was 15/6 a week for each child. Payment of a uniform family allowance, as had previously been suggested in the House, would be far more equitable und more likely to bring about the increase in the birthrate which was vital to the Dominion’s security, to say nothing of its prosperity. This was only one of many examples that could be given to show that little real effort was being made to ease the financial burden of the man who was producing the Slate's greatest asset—• children. For instance, parents buying a pram costing £8 to £lO were required to pay 20 per cent "sales tax, while the sales tax on the materials which went into the construction of the average fourroomed house had been estimated to amount to nearly £lOO. Mr. Oram, M.P. for Manawatu. had touched bn another subject relevant, to population when be declared, in the Budget debate, that production was the cornerstone of the Social Security Fund. He might well have added that production depended on the maintenance of an adequate youthful population. Over the last. 11l years in New Zealand tile number of children under 15 years had decreased by 11.000, while the number of persons over 00 years of age had increased by 00.000. In face of those facts, what prospect was there for the continued stability of the Social Security Fund unless some effective remedial action were taken?