SOLDIERS' SUBSIDISED PAY

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume 78, 11 March 1943, Page 5

SOLDIERS' SUBSIDISED PAY

EMPLOYERS NOT TO BE TAXED ON AMOUNT BILL INTRODUCED IN HOUSE (From Our Parliamentary Reporter) Wellington, This Day. Employers who supplement the pay of their soldiers employees are to be permitted to deduct such amounts from their assessable income. Provision for this is contained in a taxation measure introduced in the House of Representatives last evening. The Acting Minister in Charge of the Land and Income Tax Department, Mr Nordmeyer, stated that the law in respect to subsidies on soldier employees’ pay had been challenged in Court, and an interpretation previously placed upon it had been upset. The new provision ■would do what the Legislature intended to do in 1939 by permitting the subsidy to be regarded as deductible expense. The Leader of the Opposition, Mr Holland: “Is it being made retrospective?”

The Minister: “It is being made retrospective, but not in respect to the individual who raised the matter as his rights are protected.” Replying to Mr G. W. Forbes (National, Hurunui) the Minister said if the Bill did not go through then the Department must tax employers on the amount they had contributed and actually the State would stand to gain. The Bill also cleared up some doubt which had arisen in connection with provision made last year for deduction of national and social security taxes from incomes of rabbiters. opossum trappers and people of that kind.

When Mr Holland raised the question j whether the Opposition would have sufficient time to study the measure, I the Prime Minister, Mr Fraser, said it I was not likely that it could be .dealt with until to-morrow.