INCOME TAX

Evening Post, Volume CI, Issue 48, 25 February 1921, Page 8

INCOME TAX

DEFAULT PENALTIES REDUCED

CONCESSION BY THE GOVERNMENT. Interviewed to-day regarding the question of deferred income tax payments, the Prime Minister said : "It is impossible, without very sei'iously inter-, fering with the Dominion's finances, to give effect to the suggestion which has been put forward that half of the income tax should be collected now, that is, at the end of the financial year, and the other half during the next-financial year, but we are very anxious to avoid hardship to taxpayers who may have difficulty in meeting the claims to which they are liable for taxation purposes. I have arranged 'that the reduction in the' penalty tax, which was provided for by last session's Land and Income Tax Amendment Act, shall apply to the payments of income tax which are now being made; that is, a person failing to pay the tax on Monday would have only 5 per cent, instead of 10 per cent, added. If he failed to pay within three months of the due date, viz., 7th February, he would have 7i per cent, added, and if he failed to pay within six months of the due date he would have 10 per cent, added, i.e., that he could have just short of six months to pay the tax at a cost of Tj pear cent, of the amount of tax."

In reply to a question regarding the endorsement that was one of the principal causes of complaint in connection with deferred payment, "the Prime Minister said that endorsement was not now essential, and taxpayers affected hadl been so advised.