"CASUAL METHODS"

Evening Post, Volume CXXIII, Issue 49, 27 February 1937, Page 10

"CASUAL METHODS"

TAX OFFICE CLOSED

BUSY MEN PUT TO TROUBLE

Considerable dissatisfaction exists on the part of a number of citizens who, on going down to the Land and' Income Tax office to pay their income tax demands this morning, found the office closed, as a result of the operation of the 40-hour week in the Civil Service. Some of them complained strongly to "The Post" about what they regarded as the Department's lack of consideration in not making available facilities at this office for the payment of the tax, which is now due, more particularly as Monday is the last'day on which the tax may be paid without incurring a penalty of 5 per cent.

One prominent business man, who has always been in the habit of paying his tax at the Department's office, was particularly concerned about the Department's "inexcusable indifference," and the fact that he and others had lost so much time for nothing. "The least the Department could have done would have been to bring two or three clerks back this morning toatten'd to us," he stated, "even if it meant paying them overtime. The Government is getting two and three times as much out of most of us in the way of tax as it did last year—surely it could take steps to see that we are given every reasonable facility for payment."

Another man said that he had wasted the best part of the morning in attending to the payment of his tax, and he was quite' annoyed with the Department's casual methods.

The tax is payable at the Chief Post Office money order office, and this is stated on the demands, but very many people are under the impression that this applies only to towns in which there is no,branch of the Income TaxDepartment, and not to Wellington, where the head office is situated. In any case, it is stated that the Department did not even have a notice to this effect outside the office for the benelit of those who had overlooked the matter. "Better still would it have been if the convenience of many busy taxpayers had been considered before the rigid application of the five-day week." It was remarked by another-man that those who were accustomed to meet their obligations at the tax office naturally expected to be accommodated this morning. Most of ■them could not afford the delay and trouble sntailed in having to walk all the way back to the Post Office, and probably having to wait for some time for attention Because of the rush of business.

It was learned from a Post Office official that a large number of demands were paid at the Post Office this morning..