SALES TAX BURDEN

Evening Post, Volume CXXX, Issue 6, 6 July 1940, Page 16

SALES TAX BURDEN

NOT GREAT ON WAGE-EARNER

It was quite wrong to infer that the 5 per cent, increase in sales tax resulted in a corresponding reduction in the family man's income, declared Mr. T. H. McCombs (Government, Lyttelton). He stressed the exemp-j tion from sales tax of foodstuffs. Over 80 per cent, of the money spent by a typical worker's family, he said, was spent on goods which were not subject to sales tax. The increase of 5 per cent, could not have a very great effect on the wage-earner. The Budget, said Mr. McCombs, set out to provide for war expenditure from current income. The Government believed that this generation should pay for the war, and that our grandchildren should not ,be left to face a burden of debt, as had been done in the case of past conflicts. Referring to the question of subversion, Mr. McCombs said that some people were inclined to say that the whole of the subversive activities came from the extreme Left, but there were equally serious, or more serious, subversive activities from those on the extreme Right. It was the Quislings who were on the Right.