Manawatu Evening Standard. CIRCULATION 4150 DAILY. FRIDAY, JULY 24, 1914. THE FARMERS AND LAND TAXATION.

Manawatu Standard, Volume XLI, Issue 9855, 24 July 1914, Page 4

Manawatu Evening Standard. CIRCULATION 4150 DAILY. FRIDAY, JULY 24, 1914. THE FARMERS AND LAND TAXATION.

The Farmers' Union Conference, which opened in Wellington on Tuesday, has been responsible for some very interesting discussions, upon questions affecting not merely the producing class the Conference represents, but the public generally. This is notably the case in connection with the debate which, occurred on the system of land taxation affected by the Dominion. A Taranaki remit declared in favour of substituting "a tax on the annual value, with the same exemption as capital invested in other industries, the annual value to be i per cent of the capital value." The idea of the Taranaki Union, Mr Maxwell explained, was that land should be exempt up to £6OOO, and that a tax should be collected as an income tax on the balance of the value. The idea, of course, is that the capital value of £6OOO is equivalent to an annual income of £3OO. Incomes up to the latter amount being exempt from taxation, Mr Maxwell considers the exemption should be raised to the £6OOO limit in the case of land, instead of £SOO as at present. The fact that the remit was carried by 13 votes to 7 would seem to indicate the existence of a strong feeling amongst the farming class that our present system of taxation is at least inequitable, if not actually unjust. But, as was recognised by more than one member of the Conference, there is a very real danger in attempting- to lift taxation from the farming class, if the revenue to be made good would have to be provided by the poorer classes of the community. It is by no means an easy matter to see how any Government could reasonably dispense with the revenue that would be lost, if the exemption limit in the case of land was raised to the £6OOO. Another method has been suggested—that of substituting the income tax for the land tax, because, nowadays, the profit derived from the working of land, the capital value of which is £6OOO, ought to represent a great deal more than the 5 per cent constituting the annual value of £3OO. There are cases in which from £I2OO to £I4OO has been cleared in the twelve months on farms, the capital value of which would certainly not exceed the limit mentioned. I While these may be exceptional cases, it is safe to say that, in the greater number of instances, the income derived from the occupation, either for dairying or agricultural pursuits of land, the capital value of which is

£6OOO, iii in excess or £BOO. * *&#• are certain anomalies in ft* system of land taxation, and such MOBIt alies give rise to injustices which #re particularly galling to the nwn on the land. .But these injustices are due to the methods of valuation adopted by the auxiliary department which works hand in hand with the taxation office. A better, more logical, and more clearly defined system of land valuation, would go far towards Removing those inequalities of taxation of which so much is heard from time to time. The decision of the Conference to urge upon the Government the desirability of rais- i ing the amount upon which the graduated tax is now levied from £SOOO to £IO,OOO of the unimproved value, at which the gradations commence, appears to us to be reasonable. Owing to the high valuations now obtaining, particularly in good dairying country, the graduated land tax is operating' to the detriment of the small farmer, whom it was never intended should be harassed. The graduated tax was really j designed with the idea of bursting up ( the bigger estates, so as to increase the area of laud available for settlement. 'Now that land in Taranaki, and elsewhere, is valued at from £6O to £7O and more per acre, it does not require a very large area of country to bring the holder within the scope of the graduated tax, and an alteration of the law is certainly desirable here.