TAXATION HUMOUR

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXII, Issue 22210, 10 September 1935, Page 12

TAXATION HUMOUR

COMMISSIONER'S REVIEW INFORMAL TALK TO STUDENTS In a talk on the working of the Land and Inconio Tax Act, at a joint meeting of members of the Wellington Accountant Students' Society and the Wellington branch of the New Zealand Society of Accountants, the Commissioner of Taxes, Mr. C. E. Dowland, gave a mixture of explanation and humour, and raised many laughs. Mr. Dowland said that a very heavy responsibility was placed upon him by the provisions of the Act, which left decisions to his discretion. This onus was upon him in more than 80 places of the Act. Included in the list was the "hardship clause," section 169, which had been much invoked during recent years. He had good reason to feel thankful that his discretionary power did not extend to remissions of the 5 per cent ixmalty for late payment, which was a rigid statutory enactment. " There is no definition of income in the Act," the speaker continued. "It must bo something that comes in, although some people may feel that it is something that goes out." It was important to bear in mind that the Act required a return of earnings for the financial year—not a cash return. The fact that payment for some of the earnings in question was not received by the taxpayer in that year was no justification for omission of the amount. If this became a "bad debt" an adjustment could bo made in due course. There was only one exception allowed to that rule, and that was in the case of duly qualified medical practitioners, whose proportion of doubtful or bad debts might be large. Therefore they were iwrmittod to submit returns of cash received. Exchange had puzzled some people who received some of their incomo from other countries. The taxation practice in New Zealand was to bring those sums into the same denomination as the Dominion's currency. The tax would be levied on the sum received from overseas, plus or minus exchange, as the case might be. Among non-residents with whom the department had to get into financial grips were professional wrestlers. "They find that our holds are perhaps the only ones that they can't get out of," commented the commissioner.