TAXED FROM THE TEENS ON

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXV, Issue 23117, 16 August 1938, Page 8

TAXED FROM THE TEENS ON

Nothing could more clearly declare the financial strain to be put on New Zealand to meet the charges for social security than the Government's proposal to impose the special taxes on girls and boys over 15 years of age. The bill before Parliament reduces the taxable age from 20 to 16. At the same time the several exemptions from employment taxation applying to women disappear. The fact is that Mr. Nash will need every penny he can collect to finance so expensive a scheme.i That is why he is forced to turn out the pockets of children in their teens and make women with no income of their own reach for their handbags. Under the Employment Promotion Act, which the Social' Security Bill is to supersede, the levy and wages tax were not imposed until the age of 20 was reached, and even then students and secondary and technical school pupils were exempted. Now all these young people after their 16th birthday will become liable for the levy of 5s and for the wages tax of ?s in the pound on anything they may earn. If they draw income from an estate or from any other source, presumably they will have to pay on their receipts. If they have no income and are being kept at school or university by their parents—a class numbering many thousands in New Zealand to-day—their fathers or mothers will to find the 5s each year. Women in the past have been exempt from the levy and so have Maoris. Both will have to pay it in future, women at the rate of 5s a year. Women also lose the exemption from tax of the first £SO of income other than salary or wages. In addition the wages received by any woman or girl in respect of private domestic service, formerly untaxed, becomes liable at the' rate of Is in the pound. Not only that, but domestic workers are to be assessed and taxed on the value of their "keep," or board and lodging. Thus a domestic worker receiving 30s weekly in wages and board valued at 20s will have to pay tax of 2s 6d out of her 30s. The fact that Mr. Nash is setting so fine a tax net should bring it home to each and every one that he and she individually must pay to make up the charges for social security and that a heavy burden is being laid on all for the term of their working life.