STATE TAXATION

King Country Chronicle, Volume XXXI, Issue 4957, 18 February 1937, Page 5

STATE TAXATION

CONTRIBUTION BY FAMILIES. AVERAGE OF £76. Most taxpayers are fully aware that the usual figures relating to the amount of taxation paid per head of New Zealand's population are not effective as an index to the real amount paid by each individual (says a statement by the Associated Chambers of Commerce of New Zealand.) It is obvious that figures of national taxation, when expressing that taxation as an amount per head of the whole population, must inevitably take in men, women and children; the wage-earner, but also his dependents; the employed, but also the unemployed, the pensions, the infirm, the prison population, and those either too young or too old to be breadwinners. For that reason, many people are well aware that they are actually paying, in direct and indirect taxation, considerably more than the estimated amount of £l9 3s taxation per head of population for the current financial year. The taxpayer consequently makes some conjectures as to the real amount of taxation he pays, directly and indirectly.

It is, of course, impossible to get very far along this line. It is easy enough to sort out the fact that out of the whole of the Dominion's population only 64,000 (1934-35 figures) pay income tax, but then everybody pays indirect taxes — which produce by far the greatest revenue. However, it is a step nearer to express total national taxation in terms of the contribution made by the average family of four persons. The following table, over the whole population, and covering a period of years, is drawn up on that basis:— Taxation per Family.

*Estimated. Naturally, these figures are average; one family will pay more and another less. Certain of the taxation is direct and certain direct. To the figures in the above table are to be added local body taxation, which was equivalent to £ls lis per average family in 1934-35. The reason for the considerable increases in national taxation is of course increased Government expenditure, which, for the current financial year, is equivalent to £lO5 15s per average family. In other words, national expenditure (from ordinary revenue and loan money) is now at the rate of over £2 per family per week. A prominent State official recently contended, in an address, that high expenditure and high taxation created various social benefits through the redistribution of income which they effected, but taxation which reaches an average of £76 per family is indefensible. It has become uneconomic and unjust.

Year Amount. £ s. d. 1929-30 .... . . .. 52 14 3 1930-31 .... . . .. 50 8 4 1931-32 .. .. 45 17 10 1932-33 .... . . .. 51 10 10 1933-34 .... .. .; 55 14 3 1934-35 .... . . .. 63 14 3 1935-36 .... . . . . 65 3 1 1936-37 .... . . . . 76 16 4