TAXATION ON PETROL

Evening Post, Volume CX, Issue 41, 16 August 1930, Page 8

TAXATION ON PETROL

(To the Editor.)

Sir —The "city business man and confirmed motorist" who so strenuously justified the petrol tax in your issue of Wednesday places the matter in a strong light. I am far from being one of those opposed to the tax, but for all that must object emphatically to the matter being placed on a false foundation. This "city business man and confirmed motorist" says: "The best principle to follow in taxation is to gather it from sources where its incidence is based on voluntary choice. Tobacco, beer, and spirits, and amusements, were for that reason well loaded up. Pleasure motoring is in the tame category," etc. Now, Sir, just here is where our fneud is utterly astray. It is perfectly true that pleasure motoring is in the same category with these other things, and therefore a fit and proper subject for excess taxation, but how much of the petrol tax is derived from pleasure motoring? Our friend recalls tho days of the horse, but he neglects to recall that petrol has merely displaced the horse, and that as the horse was used mainly for commercial purposes, so petrol goes. inainly in the same direction. The use of tobacco, Sir, is quite voluntary, but where is the voluntary use pf petrol? Far

the greater proportion of it goes in necessary transportation which is obligatory and not voluntary. I would'ask "city business man and confirmed motorist" how lie proposes to carry on his business if the goods he imports are to be "voluntarily" left on the wharves, or if "voluntarily" taken thence, how they are going- to be "voluntarily"-left in his stores. Further, if taken from the stores and "voluntarily" distributed to the purchaser, how he is going to get on if the purchaser "voluntarily" refuses to meet the distribution charges? Is not the whole thing, Sir, merely a tissue of nonsense? It is time people gave up thinking of. the petrol tax to terms of pleasure motoring, which .is» mere bagatelle, and came down to tacts, tot petfol has taken the place .of horseflesh that a tax on petrol is equivalent to a tax on horseflesh, and that there is not the slightest chance of anybody'«*•«»» it, however desirous he may be of voluntarily" depriving himseli of the pleasu£ of motoring. Very little of the petroltax is borne specially by private »°to»«!' ( the great bulk of it falls upon the cony. mercial vehicle, and consequent y w* the people as a whole, and petrol, so tar from being in the category of "voluntary choice," is actually in the category «.?»*. essentials, and a tax upon it is a tax upon the community as a whole. „_•„_. As I said, I am far from being an opponent of taxation on petrol. , The injustice lies not in the tax but m the fact that this tax, which lies equally, upoa all, has been filched from the principal contributor and devoted to a purpose witH which he has little concern. Its use, when all is said and done, has mainly been t» bring the railways as an added burde* upon his shoulders.—l am, etc.,

A TAXPAYEE.