Greymouth Evening Star. FRIDAY SEPTEMBER 7, 1945. WORKERS AND TAXATION.

Greymouth Evening Star, 7 September 1945, Page 4

Greymouth Evening Star. FRIDAY SEPTEMBER 7, 1945. WORKERS AND TAXATION.

READING his own review of <1 comedy that had not appealed to him, a critic declared: —“I find J have knocked everything but the chorus girls’ knees, and there Nature anticipated me.” Opposition. Members in the House must have similar estimates when reflecting on their speeches in the debate on the Budget proposals, —not too much of a comedy to the taxpayers —'the chorus in this instance being the disciplined Labourites who dance to the Treasurer's tune. Mr. Nash has spoken, and nothing can be done about it meanwhile, but he would find it difficult to defend the ethics as well as the economics of his refusal to give taxation relief to those from whom he has extracted so much already.

Labour speakers and newspapers put over the familiar confidence trick on the wage earners by claiming that the “big business” and the capitalists pay most of the heavy taxation, but this is not true. Relatively, the workers do more than their share, directly and indirectly. Workers who are directly deprived each pay of 2/6 in the <1 earned, also pay more for everything they purchase or rent, because of the taxation imposed on the sellers. The real attitude of the Treasury to the poor is demonstrated by the refusal to lower the license fee for radio service. It is estimated that £170,000 was paid in unnecessary taxation last year for this service. New Zealand license fees, the highest in the world, yielded £435,813 and from them the £170.000 was transferred to a reserve fund now totalling £1,570,000. That is but one instance of Treasury greed difficult to defend, and a similar “grab” spirit, is found in other directions.

Treasurers in other lands have arranged some immediate relief to their taxpax eis, but Mr. Nash is adamant, although generous enough to concede “the desirability of reviewing the taxation position as early as possible.” Meanwhile employees and employers are harassed, the workers being soothed by claims that hit as they may be, the capitalists are the chief target. If they are, so much the worse tor the workeis, ultimately. Workers are foolish to regard capital as enemy more than friend, as without capital there could be little employment. “Elementary, my dear Nash,” of course, but many workers fail to realise this. Money is not capital until it is used, and what is seized by the Government makes so much less available for employment avenues. The day is coming when the labour shortage will be but a memoi}, and to have an adequate number of jobs will be the nation’s problem. Taxation relief, this year, would have made full employment prospects brighter. Another aspect of the taxation burden was emphasised yesterday by Professor Tocker, an authority on economics. He declared that most people were under the impression that the very heavy taxation was because of the war. He would point out that in 1935-36 Consolidated Fund expenditure was £26,000,000, and that now expenditure for purposes other than war was £73,000,000; that taxation, including unemployment tax, was about. £25,000,000 before the war, and was now about £62.000.000 —a tremendous expansion.