TAXATION PROSPECTS

Evening Star, Issue 21318, 24 January 1933, Page 6

TAXATION PROSPECTS

THE PREMIER RETICENT NO INCREASE IK UNEMPLOYMENT TAX [Fhom Oce Parliamentary Repokteb.] WELLINGTON, January 24. Taxation prospects are already, arousing interest amoug members, who realise that high exchange involves heavy additional budgetary liability; and they wonder what new resource can be tapped. The Prime Minister intends to make an early statement to the House on the financial position, but, in conversation with your correspondent, be was not communicative regarding the lines of future taxation. However, he remarked that he was prepared to state that there would be no increase in the present unemployment taxation. He declined to discuss the possibility of a sales tax, which had been previously under Cabinet review on a former occasion. It was understood that if this tax was adopted foodstuffs and other necessaries in common use would have been exempted. The new position, due to high exchange, makes a sales tax more difficult to contemplate, and it is not at present under consideration. It was authoritatively ascertained that an internal loan will not figure in the policy being submitted to today’s caucus. A prominent banker recently stated that the obligation placed on the banks of financing budgetary deficits had not been so heavy as anticipated. Ministers evidently have no anxieties regarding financing overseas debt obligations. As for the banks’ indemnity for possible losses on unsaleable credits (bought on the £125 basis), this is impossible to estimate at present. One authority suggests that the undisposable credits will amount at the end of the year to five millions sterling, but in official circles a sum nearer two millions is mentioned, though it is possible to find a market elsewhere for some credits which New Zealanders will not desire to buy at tho high rate.