UNEMPLOYMENT TAX

Manawatu Standard, Volume LVI, Issue 111, 11 April 1936, Page 2

UNEMPLOYMENT TAX

CHANGE- IN NOMENCLATURE. ABOLITION OF BOARD. (By Telegraph.—Special to Standard.) WELLINGTON, April 8. It is a tribute to the amount of attention paid to the problem ot unemployment by the last Tarhament that the Government’s measure for employment promotion, introduced in the House to-day, is almost completely taken from previous enactments. It is useful consolidation, bringing together all the legislation considered applicable to present conditions. A number ot amendments safeguard the revenue collecting aspect and clear up anomalies regaruuig liabiiitv tor the payment of unemployment tax. Part 4, headed “Employment Promotion Fund,” is almost entirely taken from the Unemployment Acts of 1930, 1931 and 1934, which are wholly repealed, but there is an addition to tne clause indicating how the Employment Fund is to be created. Formerly its revenue came from the employment tax, but it is intended, under the new legislation, to include all fines recovered under the statute or regulations dealing with unemployment, “and any other moneys that may be appropriated by Parliament for the purposes of this fund.” The expenditure is to be subject to the direction of the Minister of Labour with the approval of the Minister of Finance, who will determine any 'question which may arise as to whether moneys required for a specific purpose are properly payable out ot the fund.

The definitions of the main purposes of the Employment Promotion Fund are exactly as in the 1930 Act, also the powers exercisable by the Minister to give effect to its purposes. While the former legislation prohibited allowances to persons who had refused to accept employment or to any person who had not been continously resident in New Zealand for six months, these provisions may be waived “by special direction ot the Minister after consideration of the particular circumstances of the case. The existing authority to local bodies to undertake work for unemployment relief for the benefit of private or other property is extended to enable the Minister of Public Works to carry out operations by arrangement between him and the local authority. If default is made by a property owner in refunding the expenditure to the local authority the Minister may, if satisfied that all reasonable steps have been taken to enforce payment, remit the amount repayable to the Employment Fund by the local authority. . , ' An official memorandum printed on the Bill explains that it provides, in effect, for the continuation of the existing’ Unemployment Fund and the unemployment relief tax without eubstantial alteration, but under the names of Employment Promotion Fund and employment tax respectively. Section 5 of the Unemployment Amendment Act, 1931, which provides that amounts paid as unemployment relief tax shall be allowed as special exemption for income tax purposes, is not reproduced in the Bill. It is proposed to abolish the Unemployment Board and to transfer the administration of the legislation to the Department of Labour, acting under the control of the Minister. Other alterations, adds the official statement, relate mainly to matters of form or administrative detail. When the Leader of the Opposition (Rt. Hon. G. W. Forbes) asked wliat was intended to be done with the members of the Unemployment Board, the Minister replied that the Bill only made provision for its abolition and made no reference to its members.