"PAY AS YOU GO"

Evening Post, Volume CXXXVI, Issue 147, 18 December 1943, Page 8

"PAY AS YOU GO"

INCOME TAX SYSTEM

MR. HOLLAND URGES ACTION P.A. CHRISTCHURCH, Dec. 17. "Administrative difficulties are always quoted when a change is proposed and it will be a great pity if the hyper-sensitiveness of the Minister in Charge of the Land and Income Tax Department to the departmental and Treasury opposition to change, sheer inertia, lack of imagination of the Government and the lack of knowledge of what is happening in other parts of the world are allowed to hold up an overdue change which is being demanded by a majority of me taxpayers of the Dominion," said the Leader of the Opposition, Mr. Holland, commenting today on what he termed the negative reply of Mr. Nordmeyer to his suggestion ; that a "pay-as-yourt,o" income taxation scheme should be investigated in New Zealand. Mr. Holland said that in the light of what nad happened in Canada, the United States and Britain since the original reply of the Minister it was obvious that he was 4 not fully informed, while the Senate and the Congress of the United States were arguing a modification of the Ruml plan, and the Canadian Government, not frightened by the change, adopted a system, the -popularity and success of which had been placed on record by the Minister of Revenue. The United States had adopted a modified plan and a scheme covering many wage earners was to become operative in Britain as from April next. The English scheme was a masterpiece in detail and simiplicity and it profited from the experience gained in Canada and the United States. "Mr. Nordmeyer is obviously not fully aware of. Britain's scheme announced on the very day of the death of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Sir Kingsley Wood, who though favouring the principles of pay-as-you-go, had hitherto been daunted by the British Treasury's emphasis of the difficulties in the way of practical application," said Mr. Holland. "I commend the English scheme to his immediate attention and that of the Government so that definite action towards an investigation, in view of the progress elsewhere, of the application of a like scheme in New Zealand may be taken without delay. There is a popular demand for action which will not be denied by Ministerial want of knowldge or departmental apathy to change. "In asking for an investigation I am looking for the means by which pay-as-you-go can be introduced, not reasons why it cannot be introduced."