TAX SOMEBODY ELSE

Evening Post, Volume CX, Issue 144, 16 December 1930, Page 10

TAX SOMEBODY ELSE

We fully sympathise . with the farmers in their effort to bring about some reduction in the cost of production to balance the heavy fall in returns. Yet we doubt if they will achieve much if they give their attention mainly to means whereby the costs may be transferred to somebody else. There is too much of this in the planks framed for the consideration of the Hawera rally. Agricultural finance is demanded to provide loan money at a moderate rate of interest, but no suggestion is offered as to the means by which this aim is to be attained. Following as it does so closely on the inauguration of rural advances schemes, and on a period of unexampled borrowing for State advances, the proposal seems rather futile. For the rest the proposals, as baldly stated, appear rather lop-sided. "Reduction in the cost of government" is sought, again without any indication of how it is

Lo be effected. Indeed, one of the other proposals, derating t'arni lands, must impose a heavy burden on ihe Consolidated Fund—unless somebody else is to be heavily taxed to make up the rates. The cry "tax somebody else," in fact, appears to be the leading principle of the declarations. It is inseparable from the demand for the abolition of the land tax from farm lands, from derating, and from the reduction of Customs taxation. If these proposals are to be adopted by the Government; where is the extra revenue to come from? If the taxation of the farmer were really "crushing and inequitable," as the statement declares, there would be scope for adjustment; but can it be said that it is, by comparison with the taxation on other sections of the community? Almost half the land lax is paid by the towns, which also pay heavy rates. In the latest revision of taxation, also, there was a 5 per cent, addition to land tax, compared with 10 per cent, added to income, and the income-taxpayer also suffered the loss of part of the allowance formerly made for the value of premises used in the production of the income. These facts should not be lost sight of when the farmers are agitating for removal of their burdens. They must consider who is to take up the load of which they are relieved.