ILLOGICAL EXEMPTION

Evening Post, Volume CXII, Issue 9, 10 July 1931, Page 6

ILLOGICAL EXEMPTION

' The pressure put upon the Government to exempt relief workers from payment of the unemployment tax rests on no sound argument or principle. It is, indeed, directly opposed to the principle of which a rather! tattered fragment has been retained! in the Bill—that - recipients ,of benefits should be contributors. In I strengthening the fund by a wages, salaries, and income tax, the Government has weakened this, principle. Contributions, by this^ taxation, are made to be in inverse proportion to tlie'prospect of. benefits. 'If the receipt of benefits were made a ground for exemption from contribution trie contributory principle'would, be destroyed. .The Labour Prime Minister of Great Britain (according to "The ■ Times',') has himself de-' dared that departure from the.contributor)' basis of '.insurance would be "the most terrible of blunders," but Labour, in Opposition in New Zealand, makes that departure a central point in its attack on v the Bill. Apart from the principle, there are cogent practical objections to the exemption. The'fact that the defaulter is ineligible for relief work assists in • the collection of the tax. If default were to be excused when benefits were sought, difficulties in collection would be multiplied. Again, as the Minister of Labour pointed out, if exemption .is granted there are others equally deserving consideration: Retired persons with small incomes, and men earning in private employment no more than relief' work pay. To give the Labour Party its due, it would exempt all such by an income or 'wages mini-, mum. Labour, therefore, is 'less, illogical than some of the allies it found favouring the relief workers exemption. Labour, at least, shows some consistency in its urisoundness. It argues that wrong is right .and slicks to "it. Other opponents are ! not sure when wrong is right, or when jt is expedient ,to accept it as I righL