TAXATION INJUSTICES.

Grey River Argus, 11 October 1922, Page 6

TAXATION INJUSTICES.

THE REMISSIONS. Mr P. J. O’Regan, writing in the ‘Otago Daily Times,’’ says: —During he session of 1920 there were severe comments in the House of liepresenatives on the great disparity between he official laud valuations and the prices paid for estates acquired for settlement purposes. Later in the same session Air Massey made a statement :o the House intimating that as the •esult of revised valuations, the unimproved value of the taxable 1: nd of his country had been increased by £24 000,000. The inference of course, was that the next year’s land tax revenue would show a corresponding increase, and there were cordial “hear, hears’’ from all parts of the House. Mr Massey did not then disclose the fact that the benefit of this great increase in the people value of land would be neutralised by remissions of taxation, but he applied himself vigorously — ami in this he was supported by a host of .subterranean wire-pullers —to the work of augmenting the Customs taxation, ami the tea tax, imposed :n 1915, as a part of the war taxation, was not only retained but was supplemented by a sugar tax! Having carried so far the mean and ignoble task of raiding the earnings of the people by unjust taxation, Mr Massey now felt in a position to dare things even less excusable, and accordingly last year he conceded the few rich men who blockade the best land in this country a rebate of 10 per cent, land tax, representing a year's gift of 1170,000. Now he is carrying the good work still further, ami so it has come to pass that the richest people in the country are to be granted further remissions of land and income tax amounting nearly to a million! Truly a great ami daring proposition, ami one which is made doubly odious by the hypocri tical pretence that it is done in the public interest and incidentally for th? purpose of ameliorating the unemployed difliculty. Should any reader think my criticism severe, 1 invite him to consider the naked facts. Mr Massey and his friends tell us that the remission of land tax is for the benefit of the farmer, but this statement cannot, bear investigation. To begin with, not more than a fifth of the freeholders of this country pay any land tax, ami that paid by (Town tenants is a negligible quantity. Then, of those owners who are amenable to the land tax, a largo proportion are owners of urban and suburban lands. According to the Report of th? 'Taxation Commission (page 11) sexeusixteenths of the total land tax is collected in respect of town, property. As illustrating th<* great economic, truth that the unimproved xalue. of land is a people value, ami therefore the property of all the people, 1 may mention that within the past year land has “changed hands’’ in Wellington at £5OO per foot; in Auckland a section in Queen Street has realised £l2OO per foot; and in your issue of yesterday you reprinted a paragraph from a Wellington contemporary stating that, a piece of la ml had just been sold at Miramar at th® rate of £2OOO per acre, the seller of which had purchased with the proceeds a 46-acre farm of good laud, xvith a house thereon, al Olaki. Now, the few people xvho enjoy the luxury of all this untaxed privilege are certainly not farmers. Mr Massey dare not publish the occupations of the recipients of the remissions he has defended as being in the nature of relief to “poor farmers’’ for the reason that they include boot import ers, drapery magnates, merchants, estate agents, lawyers, bankers, doctors, wool kings, ami others ejusdem generis. Hence I make no apology for ch:, racterisiug the statement that these remissions are calculated to benefit settlers and to encourage production as the rankest hypocrisy. Unfortunately, xve possess no reliable statistics— because Mr Massey has repeatedly resist.-d attempts to bring Parliamentary I’: per B. 2<>A, 1907, up-to-j. |t( —showing how the lands of Nexv ZealaiKl are held. There is no doubt, however, that real settlement and {lndue production “f wealth are being seriously retard'd by land aggregation ami monopoly. Within a f(-w miles ot Wanganui, for example, 1 had pointed out to me a f<‘W xveeks back one cs late of 50 square miles, some of it excellent land. Yet everywhere xvould be settlers are seeking land, and w« have onlv to watch the ballots to realise how keen in the aspiration of the people for farms. Undoubtedly settlement ibeing retarded ami wealth production checked by the blockade of the people’* estate. Mr Massey talks about the tin emjdoy.’d, but the existence of the un employed in a country nearly as large a? (treat Britain and Ireland and having lit th- more than 1,000,000 people is : dis'wacc to the Government. Jmagim New Zealand in the slate of primeva simplicity in which Captain Cook foum it 153 vear.s ago, and imagine all tin unemployed left ashore thereon will nothing but their health and hands, am’ thev could set to work immediately 'They are ucmployed amid abundance because their land is blockaded by Al Massey’s rich friends. Why these gen try should be relieved of taxation xvhih the mass of men who have no property arc compelled to pay taxes on thei. earnings is explicable- on one groum alone. W r e have in oflice a Governmcn representing predatory interests. Tin two redeeming features of the situatioi arc that the Government owes office t' an indefensible method of election, am that at the ensuing elections it xvil poll not more than 35 per cent, of Hi x otes of the people of New Zealand,