A SCORPION WHIP

Evening Post, Volume CXXII, Issue 31, 5 August 1936, Page 12

A SCORPION WHIP

(By Telegraph.) (Special to the "Evening Post")

DUNEDIN, This Day. The "Otago Daily Times" says:— "The Minister of Finance has been doubly fortunate. To the policy pursued by the late Government he owes it that the first financial year in which he will have complete control of the national purse opened with a surplus of £281,800, and to the improvement in the economic situation that began to manifest itself last year in production, of which the prudent administration of the late Government was a factor, of material significance, he owes the buoyancy of revenues that has been a marked feature of the four months of the current financial year. It is not surprising in the circumstances, that Mr. Nash should propose to increase the expenditure chargeable against the public revenue."

The "Times" also says: "The Budget.contains a disagreeable surprise in its intimation of the intention of the Government to raise nearly three millions of additional revenue by the imposition of fresh taxation. One of the assertions made from many platforms by the leaders of the Labour Party during the General Election was that if it came into power it would not increase taxation. It-was charitably attributed to it that this meant that it would, not raise more from taxation than was already being collected but would adjust incidence in such a way as would seem to it to be equitable. To place such a construction upon its undertaking was, as is now evident' more than just to it. Mr. Nash does not offer tfte income tax payer the justice of the right to deduct the amount he pays in unemployment tax from his assessment for income tax. In. the case of all salaried persons and wage-earners income tax will be paid on 'income' which they will never receive. The" National Government may have chastised taxpayers at higher rates with whips; the Labour Government intends to chastise them with scorpions."