HIGH WAGES

Evening Post, Volume CXXXIV, Issue 42, 18 August 1942, Page 4

HIGH WAGES

"INEQUITABLE TAXATION"

"I find that there is a widespread feeling that the taxation which company shareholders have to bear today is inequitable in that it is out of proportion to the rate of tax paid by many individuals who are drawing considerable incomes as the result of very high earnings by way of industrial wages," said Mr. G. G. G. Watson, chairman of the Wellington Investment, Trustee, and Agency Co., in addressing shareholders today.. Mr. Watson also said that the shareholders in that company, like those in other companies, were for the most part small investors. with small incomes. They were, he added, prepared willingly to accept heavy taxation for the purposes of national defence. But they could not see why their small investments in a company such as theirs should attract taxation which might absorb three-quarters of their income, while larger incomes by way of high wages should escape on a much lower, basis. Similarly there was a widespread feeling that the present high taxation would be more willingly accepted if more information was available as to the purposes to which the taxation revenue was applied and as to the safeguards to ensure that, even in matters of defence, adequate value was obtained for the money expended, and adequate care taken to avoid unnecessary waste and extravagance.