TAXATION INCIDENCE

Evening Post, Volume CXL, Issue 54, 1 September 1945, Page 9

TAXATION INCIDENCE

COMMISSION SUGGESTED

The view that it would be quite proper for a Royal Commission to investigate the whole incidence of taxation and its effects and see where adjustments and remedies could be effected was expressed in the House of Representatives yesterday afternoon by Mr. J. A. McL. Roy (National, Clutha), speaking in the Budget debate.

The question that had to be considered was whether the Government was not increasing its own responsibility with a continuance of heavy taxation, said Mr. Roy. If a farmer, for instance, had to pay heavy taxation and because of that was not able to expand his property and increase production, he was not able to employ the maximum labour he should. Therefore that labour had to go elsewhere and eventually became the responsibility of the Government. It was time the Government looked into the whole question of taxation, to see whether its incidence was not actually leading to unemployment and decreased production. In his original Budget the Minister of Finance said: "The cessation of hostilities in Europe has in no way eliminated the complexities of estimating war expenses during the current financial year, rather has it increased them. Nevertheless, I may state that with the defeat of our major enemy, and notwithstanding the concentration of our full efforts against Japan, it is a somewhat more satisfactory task to prepare estimates covering a reducing in place of an increasing expenditure." The point that people Were not able to understand, said Mr. Roy, was that now the war with Japan was ended there was an increase in estimates instead of a decrease.