TAX INCREASES

Evening Star, Issue 20555, 6 August 1930, Page 5

TAX INCREASES

REFORM MEMBER’S ALTERNATIVE appropriate postal profits [From Ouk Parliaubntixi Ewowrra.l WELLINGTON, August 5. Claiming that a minority Government should not make drastic changes in the fiscal system without an appeal to the country, Mr Jones (Mid-Canter-bury) pointed out that last year a part of the Post and Telegraph Department’s surplus could have been transferred to the Consolidated Fluid, and there would have been no deficit this year. Tnere was £500,000 surplus in the Post Office account. Why raid the ratepayers and taxpayers, instead of using money in the Government s actual possession? He asked. In a private business, departments which paid and those with losses were put into the same balance-sheet, but the Government’s policy asked the country to find out of revenue all the monies required for departments that did not pay, such as the railways, and charge the deficiency to the Consolidated Fund, but did not credit the Consolidated Fund with the huge surplus from the Post Office account. “The Premier attempted to justity it recently by stating that they must have these reserves, and indicated that, away in 1940, certain things will be required. The Government’s practice does not support its policy. It is now charging many things to the Post Office that should not be charged. The new steamer service on the Bluff-Mel-bourne route is an example of this. This is an admission of the soundness of my argument. Under the Government’s present action, if postage was increased from Id to lid or 2d, this revenue would not come into , the general revenue, but would .remain in the reserves of the Post Office, unless wo passed an Act to make certain of it. This clearly indicates how unsound is his method of finance. The capital of the Post Office is about £10,000,000. It has a depreciation account of £3,000,000, in addition to this the Post and Telegraph balance-sheet indicates very clearly that considerable maintenance charges are paid out of ordinary revenue. How can the Government justify bleeding the country white with taxation, instead of using what is really annual revenue.. “The Post Office is a monopoly, and for this monopoly tho State is entitled to receive handsome profits from the business. I say, definitely, that in times like these, to take the shirts off the backs of tho workers and producers of- the dominion, increasing unemployment and creating pessimism of a most damaging kind, while the Post Office piles up its reserves, and we pay the loss on other departments, is a policy’ that this House should not tolerate.” Mr Jones attributed the increased taxation partly to unemployment, partly to railway losses. He sympathised with the Government over the unemployment problem. “ The only expanding industry the Government has got.” (Laughter.)