ESCAPING TAXATION.

Lyttelton Times, Volume CXVII, Issue 18217, 3 October 1919, Page 6

ESCAPING TAXATION.

We have been much interested in the very striking calculation made by Sir Joseph Ward in his speech in the financial debute showing the amount of value which in all probability escaped taxation in respect of one county— Hawke's Bay—-owing to the neglect of the Valuation Department to undertake .any revaluation of the county during the war period. The leader of the Opposition estimated an increase of value during the war quinquennium of 50 per cent, and showed that on that basis, allowing a regular increase of value of 10 per cent on the 1914 valuation in each of the five years, the total value which had escaped taxation was £9,000,000. Wo have taken the trouble to check Sir Joseph Ward's figures by the official returns of valuations, and find them quite correct, except, perhaps, for the fact that they understate the position. The 1914 valuation for Hawke's Bay County does not represent a complete revaluation of the county in that year. A portion has not been valued since 1911, and another portion has not been valued since IQI2, so that there are three years' pre-war increments of value on one portion and two years' on another which could quite justifiably be added to the computation. Nor do the figures available regarding county valuations suggest that Sir Joseph Ward was exceeding the mark when he based his estimate on a rise in valuo of 50 per cent in the last five years. In the case of Cook County, which shares with Hawke's Bay, Rangitikei and Southland the distinction of carrying over a million sheep, there was a partial revaluation in 1914, and another partial revaluation in 1916, and the revised valuation for 1916 exceeds that for 1914 by almost exactly 50 per cent. The figures are:—l9l4, £3,375,929; 1916, £5,063,406. This is an increase in value for only two years, not five.v and for a portion only of the county, not the whole county. Had the Liberal leader set the increase per annum down at 25 per cent, and the total increase in five years at 125 per cent, he would still have been well within the mark, for his computation would have been based' upon the actual result of a partial revaluation of a county of similar type, and not on a complete revaluation. Accepting, however, Sir Joseph Ward's very moderate and safe basis, it may be computed that in the case of the four big sheep counties already mentioned, the values which have escaped taxation aggregate "at least £30.000,000. This, of course, is only a tithe of the untaxed value. No fewer than eighty counties have not been touched by the Valuation Department since 1914, and in twenty-five others portions have not been revalued during the war period, so that it is obvious that an energetic prosecution of revaluation during the abnormal years which have just been passed through would hare produced a result which 1 would very considerably have affected the incidence of taxation. , Whatever ! excuses may hnve existed for neglect of the Valuation Department's duties during the war, there is absolutely no excuse for allowing the present condition of the valuation roll to be per-

petuated. In justice to those landholders whose holdings have been subjected to revaluation in rocent years, and to tho whole body of taxpayers, .whose burden is made heavier because so much value liable to tax escapes taxation, the situation should bo remedied at the earliest possible moment. Tho Estimates, however, show that the present Administration has not the slightest intention of moving in the matter. The resources of the Valuation Department, curtailed to the verge of ineptitude last year, are to bo still further curtailed, for the staff ia reduced- Whether the country will tolerate such impudent protection of special interests is another matter.