FAMILY TAXES

Evening Post, Volume CXXX, Issue 5, 5 July 1940, Page 4

FAMILY TAXES

POLICY DEFENDED

In describing the Budget as stupid orthodoxy, Mr. Lee had referred to the members of the Government as being stupid because they had passsed the Budget in caucus, declared Mr. J. G. Barclay (Government, Marsden).

Mr. Lee: I said that St. Ortho dox was born in stupidity.

Mr. Barclay: It amounts to time same thing. ' There were many, Mr. Barclay con- ; tinued, who were apt to consider this war and the reactions to it, botli from ' the financial and military aspects, by . what happened during the la; it war. The reactions were going to be very ] different. People were slowly changing ' their outlook, and a good many cif them could see that no fortunes were- going to be made out of this war by private ' individuals as they were in tbie last war. The more that was realised the ' greater the co-operation with the Government would be. Examining the effects of the inicome tax and national security proposals on the man with a wife and two children earning £200 a year, Mr. Barclay;said that this man paid nothing in income tax and paid £10 in national secixrity tax. At the same time he received 4s a week benefit for the second c«hild that he did not get before, so thai in his case the result worked out practically as it was before. He paid something in indirect taxation, but a point to be remembered was that sales -tax. was not imposed on most foodstuffs. INDIRECT TAXATION. He dealt similarly with the effects of direct taxation on family men on otbier salary levels, and declared that no country in the world was making more liberal allowances to the family m;ari than New Zealand. i Mr. S. G. Holland (National, Christ-, church North): What about the socisiS security tax? , ; Mr. Barclay said he had not included1., social security tax in his compilations; be ause it was an insurance at anytime, something being received bade for payments made. Referring to the financing of the war*. effort Mr. Barclay said that although i there might not be complete agreement on the methods that had been.'| employed, the fact remained that net-

thing was being^cramped or hampered through lack of finance! The Government had used the Reserve Bank credit to the extent of £25,000,000, and nearly half of that had been spent. in building houses, which were a splendid asset.