TAXATION REVISION

Evening Post, Volume CXX, Issue 42, 17 August 1935, Page 6

TAXATION REVISION

'*._•_ - : .. (To ithe. Editor.). • Siri—"The burden of taxation is, at the present time, retarding progress in all industries," declared Mr. 'H; Mainland, presiding at the annual meeting of the -Wellington Employers' Association. And the annual report put it even more strongly: "The heavy, taxation imposed is staggering industry and imposing an unnecessary' •burden, on, the people." Mr. Mainland I called for a reduction in the burden of taxation. The report called for "the i revision of the methods of taxation"; I 'and both singled out the sales tax as specially objectionable, costly, and burdensome. - Certainly, the sales tax should go. But the, sales tax is only the last straw. All the other taxes which are "retarding progress in all industries," "staggering industry and r iposing an unnecessary burden on the people" should also be abolished. The land tax, which takes only about £500,000 - year (a •few years ago it took three times as much) of the land values' (about "£15,000,000 a year) created by the community, and therefore rightly belonging to the community as a whole, 'is,the only tax that does not "retard progress in all industries," and it would not retard or stagger any industry nor impose any burden whatever upon the people, even if it took, not merely £500,000 a year, but the whole £15,000,000 a year of ■ communitycreated land value. Of course, such a tax would retard and stagger our great primary industries—land speculation, land aggregation, and the .farming of the farmer. But that would' not injure, indeed it would greatly benefit all true industries and' especially the farming of tho land. Why, then, does not the Employers' Association advocate the gradual—not- too gradual—abolition of all taxes that, retard and stagger industry and demand that they be replaced by increasing step by step the tax on lanJ-values,—l am, etc., ECONOMIST.