CRUSHING TAXATION

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXV, Issue 22961, 12 February 1938, Page 17

CRUSHING TAXATION

Sir, —I was sorry to read Mr. Hamilton's promise for the National Party to "repeal the unemployment tax on women" —(only). This is only tinkering with a major problem. Our little country, tax-cursed, needs a vastly larger remission of taxation than that. The whole unemployment tax should be abolished for something more constructive. Only that way will the serious relevant abuses disappear. When the Coalition Government reduced the unemployment: tax from Is to 8d in the £l, Mr. Savage, speaking in the House, said: "This tax cannot be defended," and ho indicated that the Labour Government would abolish it, or radically alter its incidence. Yet for two years Mr. Savage's Labour Government has continued to collect a tax that "cannot be defended!" If the Labour Government continues to collect the unemployment tax, bu£ under another name relative to a national superannuation scheme Mr. Hamilton will be outmanoeuvred. He proposes to abolish the tax on women only. Most likely the Labour Government will, nominally, abolish the whole tax by leaving it on under another name, and take full credit for its abolition! It would appear that the Leader of the National Party is not sufficiently alive to the depressing and crushing influence of taxation upon the nation's industry, enterprise and economy. When it is a matter of grave national concern that prudence, as against profligacy, should be injected i into the Labour Government's policy before it is too late, it is a pity that Mr. Hamilton does not boldly plan to •repeal the whole unemployment tax — and millions more. Tho dictum of Mr. Nash that the Government collects taxes "because it can spend the money better than those who earn it," is arrogant, Fascist and totalitarian. Vigorous opposition is imperative. A. J., Stallwortht.;