EXCESS PROFITS.

North Otago Times, Volume CIV, Issue 13656, 26 August 1916, Page 2

EXCESS PROFITS.

A GAZETTE NOTICE. TAX-COMMISSIONER ON .THE WAR PATH. With the uew authority vested in him wider the Finance Apt, 191G, the Commissioner of Taxes is netting ready to dip deep into the pocket's of the taxpayer. So much.is obvious in the terms of his notice appearing in the latest issue of the Gazette: " Notice is hereby given that ili pursuance of the above Act. (Finance, 1916) every person and company having derived:, excess profits as defined by the said Act during tlie_ year 1916 is hereby required to notify me of his election relating to standard ieome, and to make and,furnish to me the. necessary statement and! returns on .'the forms provided (which may be obtained at any postal money order office) on or before October 7,1916. "And notice is hereby given that such returns, statements,' and notices shall in all case's be delivered at or forwarded' to. the office of the Commissioner of Taxes in. the Government Buildings at Wellington. .•;.., "In cases where the taxpayer has already ■ furnished '■ the returns.'and statements required lie need only notify me of his election. "In eases ' where annual balancesheets and profit audi loss accounts have been prepared, copies of the same will be accepted in lieu of the returns and statements." Clause 10 of the Finance Act is fairly generous in the alternatives which i't offers to -its victims in the matter of selecting his "standard of income".that, is the sum above which all income shall come under th'e tender mercies of the Commissioner. \l n selecting this standard the taxpayer may take his earnings from each of the three years' ending March 31st, 1914, and finding the average of the three, make that his standard. If that does riot suit him he may select two out of the three years, find the average and mako that j his standard; or, finally, he may select any one of the three years, making the income from that year alone his standard. A prophet would not go fa; 1 wrong in assuming that a fair amount of calculation is going to be done by business men during the next week or two. It has been whispered on occasion that the ordinary income taxpayer is not over-anxious in making up' his returns to the Department, to use any craft in making his income look big. Such a course would only arouse the rapacity of the tax collector. But the excess profits tax creates a somewhat different situation. ■lt is just within the bounds of possibility that taxpayers may desire to make their standard of income as high as possible. Certainly the lower it is made the higher will be the margin of "excess profits," and larger, too, the amount available for the yawning mouth of the public Exchequer. Business men may appreciate the Government's generosity in allowing them to select their own method of being financially slaughtered.