TAX ON BACHELORS.

Manawatu Times, Volume XLVI, Issue 2125, 17 May 1922, Page 4

TAX ON BACHELORS.

A few days ago this paper threw out a hint to tho Labour Party that if it desired to provide an endowment or families, it should advocate the imposition of a tax on bachelors. The idea appears to have "caught" with members of the Farmers' Union. The president of the Wellington Provincial Council, in his address at Waiiganui yesterday, said: —"In New Zealand we have always scorned a taxon bachelors as not worth while, but [ am of opinion that this is an equitable way of distributing- taxation. We find that in Germany this is one means by which they are meeting their heavy liabilities, likewise in U.S.A. they have enforced a bachelor tax sin.-ic the war. In U.S.A the bachelor is a-llowed an exemption of JOOO dollars, and is taxed on the balance on a graduated scale, beginning at 4 per cent The family man on the other hand is given exemption up to 2500 dollars, in addition io which there is an exemption of 400 dollars for each dependent child. It is true that there is an exemption for children in New Zealand, though it is in no way as substantial as in America. The bachelor tax at the present time might be looked upon as a .ioke, but when we. compare, his expenditure to that of a man with a family, who pays not only direct but heavy indirect taxation, it seems to me a very fair method of equitable taxation."