TAXES AND PRICES

Evening Post, Volume CXXX, Issue 26, 30 July 1940, Page 8

TAXES AND PRICES

COST OF LIVING RISES

PROBLEMS FOR HOUSEWIVES

THOSE EXTRA PENCE

Careful housewives will have, indeed are already having, some complex problems to solve, chief of which is how to make twenty shillings today buy what it bought a week or so ago. They started this week with two handicaps: 5 per cent, less in wages or salaries, land 5 per ceat. increases on many articles in daily use. Reference was made in "The Post" on Saturday last to an announcement by the Master Grocers' Association of relatively substantial advances made in prices- of many lines. There is no need to repeat them. Those increases were made by the association with the authority of the Price Tribunal. The increases ,do not appear much in themselves, but it is the aggregate that tells, Id here, 2d there, 3d somewhere else, and ' so the cost of living continues its upward course, and that with a reduction of Is in the £ off the weekly income. The increases in prices that will now have to be paid through the rise in the sales tax will affect a large range of household requisites. The housewife will have a fuller realisation than she has had for some years past, if at all, of the meaning of the expression, "tightening the belt." Not every grocery concern,, however, is affiliated with the Master Grocers' Association. Some of them in a quite large way conduct their business on lines of their own, but these firms have had to advance their prices, because.* packers and manufacturers of almost every article supplied have raised their prices too. Ultimately the sales tax of 10 per cent, or 2s in the £ is paid by the -customer on all articles upon which sales tax is collected. TAKE A PEANUT. The tax, however, is not collected, on everything the grocer sell., but it is taken on all so-called processed articles of food in general consumption, not necessarily luxuries. So then, although the tax may not apply to food, it does apply to articles commonly used as foods, such as breakfast cereals bearing a proprietaryname or brand while plain oatmeal or rolled oats goes tax free. Take again the /peanut. In its shell it is a food and not subject to sales tax, but if divested of its shell it is taxable on sale by 10 per cent. Other articles are similarly free if in original scale, but taxed if "processed." Another curious feature of the sales tax as applied to foodstuffs is that "straight" cornflour is "food"—but let it have the faintest suspicion of flav^ our ing or tinting, be put up in a fancy packet, and given a fancy name, then it will carry the sales tax. So far as it appears at present the housewife may find it necessary to evade the sales tax by adjusting her daily bill of fare in such a way as to compile it (as near as she can get) from foodstuffs that do not carry sales tax.' She may not be able to do it. As to .things other than foods she will have no chance of escape. . Unfortunately for the housewife, foods not carrying the sales tax, especially vegetables and fruit, continue at prices which add to her difficulties in coping with the shrivelling value of the £. . ' . WEIGHTS AND QUANTITIES. Another problem is represented by alterations or rather reductions in weights, and quantities that were formerly accepted, as, say, 4 oz, 8 oz, or 16oz, or dozens, or 25's, or 100's. Some of these "reputed" weights have been found to be £oz or£oz less than they were before, or were supposed to be. But, as the conjurer would say, "Ladies and gentlemen, there's positively no deception." There is not— for no weights are -stated on many articles in common use or their containers, nor in such cases are they required by law to be so. The point is, that less is being given for the money, or, put in another way, the money does not go so far as it did. THE DAILY BREAD. Take bread. Auckland bakers have been accused of adding £d to the price of the one-pound loaf as delivered. The charge was investigated by the "New Zealand Herald," which learned that weight did not enter into what is called "fancy" bread. The inquiry disclosed that the half-loaf taking as weighing lib might, in point of fact, weigh 12oz or 12£oz. But so called "plain" bread, the tin loaf, and the sandwich loaf did weigh the legal 21b; one loaf might be a shade under, another a shade over the legal weight; but ten or a dozen of such loaves would average 16oz to the pound. With two or three hearty children the loss of even a couple of ounces of bread on a loaf would represent a considerable shaving down of the buying power of the £ over a period of weeks or months. What about price control? was the question put by a representative of "The Post" to the executive of a large distributing concern. The answer was, "There is not one article which has come under control, whether by Government or by producers' organisations, that has not been advanced in price. "The consumer has been overlooked —ignored, if you like. ' "The retail trade in every section i« only too willing and ready to increase and accelerate its turnover, and does not welcome these increases in price; quite the reverse. The trader wants to get on with his business, he wants freedom to deal with price problems as best he can. In any case, it must be evident to every tradesman that sales must slow down with increased tax demands on wages and interference in the conduct of business on business lines."