The Taxpayers' Evil Month

Northern Advocate, 20 February 1939, Page 6

The Taxpayers' Evil Month

THE question of income tax looms large this month because the tax is now due for income earned in the year ended March 31, 1938, and if the tax is not paid by the end of February it incurs alO per cent, penalty. Nor will the Commissioner of Taxes allow any payment by instalments to soften the blow. The full amount has to be paid on the specified date, and even though the taxpayer may be disputing the amount of his assessment he still has to pay up and look as pleasant as he can, on the understanding that if the Commissioner of Taxes is in error he will adjust matters at some time in the future. What Mr Nash terms the process of “spreading the net wide” has been in operation for some time as far as income tax is concerned, with the result that many people of modest station in life now find themselves called upon to pay income tax. Many of them, of course, arc getting more money than previously, but all the same they do not find it altogether palatable. f They feel that, considering their modest earnings and equally modest scale of living, Mr Nash could well afford to dispense with their assistance in balancing his budget. Such an impression, however, is totally, erroneous. Little fish, to the tax gatherer, are very sweet. Mr Nash needs the small man even -more than he needs the big man. Actually the greatest share of income tax is contributed by men on salaries of less than £IOOO a year, and it is this class which, in spite of protestations to the contrary, has suffered most heavily by the steep taxation increases' introduced by the present Government. Mr Nash’s reply to those who complain of feeling the pinch of taxation is that it isn’t what he takes from them that matters, but what they have left. This formula, however, gives scant comfort to people who find it a matter of real difficulty, as many undoubtedly do, to lay their hands on the ready cash to pay their income tax.

The problem in many cases is aggravated by the fact that many people to-day are paying tax, not on their present earnings, but on what they earned -in 1937-38. Since March 31, 1938, they have experienced adversity or illness. They may have had an addition to their family, with all the extra expense entailed thereby. But no allowance is made for this. Exemptions for children' are not allowed for the year in which they are born, though this is frequently the most expensive period to their parents.

The position is not improved by the extreme reluctance of the authorities to make allowances for eases of hardship, or by the cynical fashion in which, as the Chief Justice recently pointed out, they flagrantly disregard the moral issues in levying tax on deceased estates.