TAXATION BURDEN

Manawatu Standard, Volume LVII, Issue 306, 25 November 1937, Page 7

TAXATION BURDEN

HINDRANCE TO TRADE. BUSINESS MAN’S VIEW. Per Press Association. WELLINGTON, Nov. 24. Referring to taxation, Mr Henry Kitson, the president of the New Zealand Stock Exchange, when addressing members of the association said that the State and local body taxation takes 27.6 per cent., or 5s 6d in the £, on the total value of produc- ; tipn in New Zealand. He said that in recent years New Zealand statesI men, like many others, had been thinkI ing in terms of economic nationalism. | History had witnessed that this policy, 'carried to its ultimate conclusion, was fatal to the economic life of a country that had borrowed from overseas large sums for development in the past and still required foreign capital to carry out necessary development and in- ! creased production. No government j could be expected to be able to borrow internally and keep increasing the percentage taken in the form of taxes i from production. j Mr Kitson said it was cprresponding- ■ ly difficult to induce outside capital to I he invested ill a country where taxation became severe and out of proportion. Trade was being stifled, not only by taxation, but by the setting up of trade harriers by quotas, by exchange control, by licenses, and by clearing arrangements, which were as i barbed wire drawn across the field lof trade. Confidence in the near and j distant future required healthy trading conditions in this country.