BURDEN OF TAXATION.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LIX, Issue 18195, 14 September 1922, Page 9

BURDEN OF TAXATION.

EFFECT UPON INDUSTRY. SALES TAX DISCUSSED. Tlio subject of taxation on industries was discussed by the Auckland Provincial Employers' Association at its annual meeting yesterday. The president, Mr. Albert Spencer, in his annual address, advocated a national progressive land policy, under which unoccupied spaces would bo opened tip to oversea settlement, on terms and conditions calculated to attract the best typo of British emigrant to bring about rapid progress. Outside capital and braina should be encouraged to assist in building up the country. This could be done by abolishing the existing system of penalising taxation, on tho graduated scale. Probably the sales tax, that had proved so successful in Canada, would be found efficacious in providing the necessary revenue lost by reverting to an easy and fixed rate of income and land tax. Mr. Spencer referred with satisfaction to the recommendation by the Taxation Committee that the Government and local body trading concerns should bear the charges and taxes to which private undertakings were subject. The revenue lost by the Government through municipal trading not being subject to taxation, amounted to £400,000 per annum. Private trading concerns were thus at a serious disadvantage through having to pay their share of the lost revenue, as well as paying their own legitimate taxation. To summarise tho position our chief needs to-day were: • (1) To secure an increase in primary products by a vigorous land settlement policy; (2) to induce capital to supply cheap money for the uro of settlers, by guaranteeing that it, should not be strangled by taxation. If the Government could be induced to adopt a policy on these lines, the expansion of secondary industries would follow automatically owing to the increased market for the manufactured article. Mr. W. J. Jaggs, vice-president said the burden of taxation made it almost impossible to make headway at all. They would never induce, overseas capital to come to the country until they could show that a reasonable return would be made on the investment. More attention should he paid to the suggestion for a system of taxation of sales. Though such a proposal, generally, met with criticism on the ground that it would impose a burden on tho workers, the latter would, in practice, bo better off under such a system. He strongly supported the principle of like taxation for municipal and private enterprises. Mr. H. W. Hudson opposed the sugeestion of a sales tax on the ground that it would be passed on to the consumer and so tend to increase the cost of living. The more the proposal was looked into the more impolitic it seemed.