THE GRADUATED LAND TAX.

Evening Post, Volume LXXV, Issue 86, 10 April 1908, Page 5

THE GRADUATED LAND TAX.

SHAREHOLDERS LIABLE. Shareholders and land companies, or companies owning land, have recently been reminded by tho Land and Income Tax Department that they are liable to be- assessed for. taxation in respect of their interests. A shareholder's inter•est, under the Act passed last session, is based proportionately on tho valuo of the shares he holds in a company. Formerly shareholders escaped liability. Partners, under the old Act, -had to pay taxation j but by a curious anomaly it was possible previously for, say, givon shareholders forming a joint company and owning interests valued at, say, £10,000 to evade taxation in respect of such interest while seven partners in an estate worth a similar amount ivoro obliged to contribute their quota to the revenue vof tho company. A case on point, as "it, affect's shareholders in a landed estate, was brought under tho noticft of a Post reporter to-day. A man owning a freehold in his own right worth £4000 also possesses a shareholding interest in a company Yo the extent of something over £1000. Under the conditions now obtaining ho.will be required to pay one-sixteenth of a penny in flic pound graduated tax on the unimproved value.i Formerly he escaped. The clause of the Land and Tncomo Assessment Act bearing on the question states : —"For 1 the purposps of the Act all land owned by a fompany shall be deemed (though not lo tho exclusion of the liability oi the company or of uny other persons) to bo owned- in common by the shareholdors of that company in the pioportion which their interests in the paid up capital of tho company bear to the total paid up capital and tho said shareholders shall bo individually assessed and liable for graduated tax accordingly.