EXCUSES THAT DO NOT EXCUSE

Evening Post, Volume CXXIV, Issue 58, 6 September 1937, Page 8

EXCUSES THAT DO NOT EXCUSE

When making an emphatic statement in Christchurch that the incidence of taxation would be "put right" the Prime Minister advanced the excuse that the complaints of delay in reducing exchange and the sales tax came from the people who imposed these burdens. If this were wholly correct, which it is not, it would not be a valid excuse. Even a party which imposed the burdens has reason to complain when the party that said it would remove them (and on that promise won support) is dilatory in keeping its promise. Another, argument used to excuse the Government's taxing record was that taxation in the aggregate was greater because, the aggregate income was greater. The implied argument is that the Government cannot be blamed if; it receives more money than it sought. Butit'was well known that the new and high taxes required in the depression period to secure the Government revenue would yield an abundance when the national income rose again. The Minister, of Finance in his Budget showed that £3,000,000 more would be available without adding to the taxes. Knowing this the Government could have altered the rates and thus obtained no more than in the previous year. It did not. It raised the rates to take £1.800,000 more, over and above the'£3,ooo,ooo c^tra that it anticipated receiving. The Prime Minister has also made the plea that the increase was needed to provide for pensions. This is the excuse made in the Budget. It has no more validity than the excuse of a man who, having spent part of his wages on non-essentials, complains that he cannot provide the necessaries of life. With £3,000,000 additional revenue (without raising tax rates) the Government had ample to meet pension charges; but it allotted this to other purposes and then said: "There must be more taxes for pensions." We sincerely hope that the Government's belated fulfilment of its promises to revise taxation will prove to> be better than its excuses for the delay.