THE TAX ON OIL.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LII, Issue 16020, 11 September 1915, Page 6

THE TAX ON OIL.

j Although no general reconstruction of the war-tax proposals can be seriously contemplated by either Cabinet or Parliament, it may be hoped that the Minister for Finance will see his way to making some concession in the matter of petrol and kerosene. Sir Joseph Ward has very fairly pointed out that after the old duty on kerosene was. remitted it was asserted that the consumers were not correspondingly benefited, but however that may have been it is not to be questioned that the consumer will have to pay the tax now proposed. The discussion throughout the country has made it very clear that a very considerable proportion of the amount which may thus be collected will fall upon small industrialists who can ill afford to bear increased burdens. Motor-cars owned and maintained for purposes of pleasure are very reasonably subjects for war-taxation, but motor-lorries, transport launches, I fishing-boats, stationary oil-engines j and other industrial machinery to which oil is fuel are in a very different category. Outside the towns, and even among the less prosperous in the towns, kerosene is the common flluminant. which is an additional reason why it should not be heavily taxed. On the other hand, the state needs money, while the Government could not possibly draft a tax-scheme to which no objection could be raised. Taken as a whole, the proposals are as acceptable as could be expected ; no Minister for Finance could reasonably hope for more enthusiastic appreciation. The Auckland Chamber of Commerce confines its formal criticism to the oil-tax, and this is certainly the general attitude of the community at large. It is not too late for some concession in this direction, and the friendly suggestion that it might be made by Sir Joseph Ward and the National Cabinet is in no sense condemnatory of the tax-scheme as a whole.