INCOME RETURNS

Evening Post, Volume CVII, Issue 131, 4 June 1924, Page 4

INCOME RETURNS

A protest arose-at the Mid-Can-terbury Provincial Farmers' Conference last week at the difficulty of filling in income-tax forms. Mr. G. W. Leadley, who is prominent *n farmers' organisations, and may be; considered a man of affairs, was leader in protesting! He spoke of a maze of instructions, and suggested that the farmer was required even to state the number of eggs his wife collected for family consumption. Nothing of the kind is required. The income-tax form asks only for the "estimated value of meat and other produce of the farm used for private and domestic purposes." Such an estimate should be easily prepared by calculating the value for typical weeks. Any town housewife could" prepare such an estimate, and farmers' wives are certainly not lacking in intelligence. For the rest, the income-tax form seeks only such particulars as any farmer should keep for his own service, if be is to know whether he is farming at a loss or at a profit. If any questions are perplexing, there are accountants in all parts of the country able to. enlighten the inquirer, and in the last resort the farmer could write to the Tax Department. This plea of perplexity is not one that should be advanced in this age by any men who are in receipt of taxable income. It certainly comes strangely from men who claim at other times that they are able to run the whole business of the country, including banking, stock and produce broking, shipping and exporting. Yet they ask to be excused from, making income-tax returns—because the task is too difficult.