PENSIONS BURDEN

Hawera Star, Volume L, 6 March 1931, Page 5

PENSIONS BURDEN

THIRD OF TOTAL REVENUE PROBLEM IN COMMONWEALTH ANOMALIES CRITICISED. 1 ui.iko t-rtt*, Uy Klecinc 'lViegrapti j Copyright.) CANBERRA. March 5. The fact that 80 per cent of the adult wage-earners of Australia do not pay Federal income taxation and that 264,766 taxpayers out oi 3,oUu,uuu elect-ois have to carry more than their share of the national burden is the subject of pointed comment by the Commonwealth Auditor-General, Ail Cerrutty, whose annual report was presented to Parliament to-day. Mr Cerrutty attributes this anomalous position to the wide and unjustifiable character of the exemptions exercised by wage-earners with ramilies of four or five children and otneis. He urges a thorough revision of pensions and declares that the cost of old age, invalid and war pensions, £20,000,000 annually, absorbs onethird of the Commonwealth, revenue. The war pensions are on a wholly unjustifiable scale, he says. Hundreds suffering no physical disability are drawing pensions as well as ordinary pay. Old age and invalid pensions are I being paid to two-fifths of Australian women over 60 and of men over 75 years, irrespective of whether they have led dissolute, lawless lives, and thus the thrifty are called upon to contribute by taxation to people often unworthy of assistance.