Untitled

New Zealand Mail, Issue 705, 4 September 1885, Page 18

Sei/dom has the spectacle been presented of a community desiring an increase in taxation of any kind. Yet there is no mistaking the fact that the sense of the New Zealand public is distinctly in favour of the Property-tax being increased from three-farthings in the pound to a penny, instead of being raised only to seven-eighths of a penny, as proposed by the Colonial Treasurer. And we believe also that the general feeling is decidedly favourable to the abolition of the present exemption, or its material reduction. We need hardly say that this feeling is in no degree due to any love of taxation, or to any arlent desire to contribute more than at present toward the colonial revenue. But there is a very strong conviction on all sides that the Treasurer’s proposals in his Supplementary Budget are not adequate or satisfactory. A large deficit is imminent, notwithstanding all specious attempts to explain it away. The proposal to provide for this partly by “ kite-flying,” partly by the addition of the extra half-farthing to the property tax, while the latter is, on the other hand, to be diminished by the enlargement of its exemptions, cannot commend itself to any thoughtful mind as a satisfactory mode of meeting the threatened emergency.. It is a mere putting off the evil day of payment, and this means that we shall have to pay all the more when the deferred pay-day at last arrives. People are now beginning thoroughly to awake to the perception of this. necessary consequence of procrastinating the inevitable. Therefore they would prefer to pay a little more just now through a tax which nobody really feels, rather than find themselves menaced next year with heavy allround increases of taxation in a more burdensome form, such as were vainly sought to be imposed this year, but which in another year might have become essential for the meeting of our accumulated engagements. That is what every sensible man must see and feel. He recognises that the Colony must fulfil it. engagements and meet its just liabilities; that the only question is how the needful funds can be raised in the least oppressive manner. And the great majority of the public have grown to perceive that this can best be done by way of the property tax. It was skilfully argued by a correspondent in our columns that a penny property tax was equivalent to a war income tax in England, and that it pressed severely on property-owners. But we wonld point out that it is not a question whether taxation is or is not desirable or necessary. Everybody will decide the former* in the negative, and must admit that the latter could only be answered affirmatively. The postulate must be conceded that we cannot do without taxation, and the only question is, Who should pay it ? Should the chief burden fall on the struggling

numbers who can only just pay tbeir way, who perhaps cannot do that, but are crippled with, debts, yet who are heavily taxed through almost every necessary of life ? Or should it be borne by those who possess, over and above all liabilities, the means of paying it without suffering any appreciable inconvenience in doing so ? That is the question. The money must be forthcoming. Is it to be mainly provided by those who can afford to furnish it or by those who cannot P Surely all reason and justice and common sense must select the former class as the more suitable taxpayers. It is not as if the property tax presses upon anybody encumbered with debt, because no man can be called on to pay a farthing until he possesses property absolutely unencumbered after deducting every penny that he owes. This is the great beauty and fairness of the property tax—that it can only fall on the person who has the means of paying it. If he has not the means he cannot be taxed. Customs, on the other hand, not only fall on everybody whether able to pay or not —because the only alternative to paying is to go without the necessaries of life —but it i 3 also subject to a heavy addition in the shape of importers’ and middlemen’s profits, which are extracted from the pockets of the taxpayers, yet do not go into the coffers of the State, but into the bulky purses of wealthy merchants and tradesmen. So also a land tax presses hardly on the struggling and heavily - mortgaged small farmer, but spares his rich mortgagee, who draws a handsome income from the mortgagor’s necessities. There is no valid reason why any exemptions from property tax should be retained. The tax is pro rata, and any man who possesses LIOO worth of property over and above all -that he owes can very well afford to pay a tax of 8s 4d out of the L 8 or HO per annum which that property probably brings him in, or, at any rate, is worth to him. For, be it remembered, he will have to pay the tax in any case, and if not in this comparatively easy direct manner, nevertheless by some more burdensome indirect method, because the money must be obtained in one way or another. If Ministers were wise they would face the position boldly and sweep away all exemptions which, as was very well and clearly pointed out Tuesday night by Mr Wakefield in the debate on the Property Assessment Bill, are no real relief, and the abolition of which would not be felt as any hardship. Such a course would be infinitely preferable to mere temporising expedients which must infallibly involve additional burdens in the long run.