The New Zealand Times. SATURDAY, MAY 15, 1915. TAXATION ANOMALIES

New Zealand Times, Volume XL, Issue 9044, 15 May 1915, Page 6

The New Zealand Times. SATURDAY, MAY 15, 1915. TAXATION ANOMALIES

Now Zealand’s big squatters axo very considerably undertaxed. , If there was any doubt on. this score, it is completely removed by a neat little table by the 'Hon, James Allen, in bis 1914-15 Financial Statement. Such an exposure was, of course, quite unintentional. It wan very far indeed from the mind of! our Tory Minister for Finance. But it is none the less effective. The table was intended to show how boldly the Massey Government bad tackled the squatters, and what big things they were doing for “settlement, more settlement, and still more settlement.” But, in reality, the table proves their much-vaunted increase of the graduated land tax to be nothing more nor less than a sham, and, incidentally, it completely gives away the case for the graduated land taxpayers. Hero it is; and most illuminating and instructive it proves on close analysis:

Tax at Old .Hahn- Rato prior Tax at, proved to passing present value, of Amend- rate. Increase, ment Act. 1912.

To a man possessed of an unimproved value of upwards of £30,000 —to say nothing of other forms of property, lie holds —an increase of less than £2B a year in graduated land tax is the merest bagatelle. And an increase of less than £94 a year is a mere nothing to a man possessed of an unimproved value ot over £70,000. Such paltry increases, it is manifest, could have little or rio effect in the direction of compelling the owners of these big unimproved values bo subdivide their great holdings. As a matter of fact, it will be found that A’s graduated land tax on an Unimproved value of £31,655 falls short of Id in the £1 The graduated land taxes paid .by B and C, on unimproved values of £49,650 and £57,533 respectively, fall short of 2d in the £! On an unimproved value of £63,910, D pays in graduated land tax little more than 2d in the £ ; and E, on his great unimproved value of £70,529, pays less than 25d in the £1 Tins analysis of the position will, wo fancy, somewhat surprise the general public, accustomed as they are to violent Tory denunciations ot the “iniquitous and confiscatory” char-

actcr of the graduated land tax. For cho year 1913-14 this “iniquitous and confiscatory” tax yielded in all £258,135. There are 6148 graduated landtaxpayers. So that on the average tins iiappy 6000 paid in graduated land tax little more than £4O per head. Surely, the great privilege of monopolising no less than £84,000,000 out of the £140,000,000 of taxable land values of New Zealand, is cheap, dirt cheap, at such a nrice! . , ,

Moreover, on the Hon. James Allen’s own .showing, daring the live years 1908-9 tlie (3000 were so fortunate as to bo permitted to pocket. practically twenty-six millions sterling of what John Stuart Mill, more or Jess felicitously termed the “unearned increment.’’ Now, 5 per cent, on £26,000,000 means £1,300,000 a year. So that the graduated land tax paid by this upper 6000 amounts to considerably less than onefifth of the yearly value of the huge unearned wealth that has accrued to them within the past five years. Or, to put it another way, for every £1 the upper 6000 pay in graduated land tax they are able to-day to draw over £5 a year more in ground rent than they could five short years ago! In fact, the increased yearly value of their land — the annual value of the “unearned increment” they have been permitted to appropriate in the five-year period 1908-9 to 1913-11—gives them back each year every penny that they pay in graduated land tax; and gives them, besides, a nice little bonus of over £1,000,000 a year! Manifestly, therefore, there is room for a very substantial increase in. tho graduated land tax. And if, thanks to his extravagant financial methods, the Hon. James Allen must needs raise more revenue, this is where ho should look for it. If he must have money, let him go where money is. The graduated land tax, indeed, might well bo doubled; and that without any chance of unduly oppressing the upper 6000, without any risk of seriously reducing their possible savings, without any fear that either they or thoir families might in consequence have to go short of any of the necessaries, or even of any of the reasonable luxuries of life. But, of course, no substantial increase of the graduated land tax can bo expected from the Hon. James Allen and his colleagues. They will, if they dare, leave tho squatters in peace. “ Did we not give the squatters a turn of tho screw in 1912?” they will ask. What do the Massey Government care, though .the squatter is demonstrably undertaxed, and the workers, in. i consequence, are necessarily overtaxed? From the Tory point of view that is a very proper and a very happy state of affairs. The Tory party will not add appreciably to the land tax, though it hardly presses at all upon tho well-to-do squatter. They have not reduced the Customs taxes, though such taxes press very hardly upon the poor; and, though as a party they stand pledged to lower these taxes so as to reduce the cost of living, they are far more likely to increase the Customs' duties, and thus add to the already far too heavy tax-burdens borne by the landless masses.

£ £ fl. d. £ s. d. £ a. d. A 51,666 98 19 1 126 15 6 27 16 5 B 49,650 304 2 1 339 5 0 34 3 11 0 57,513 409 18 5 462 17 7 52 19 2 p 63,910 603 5 10 577 17 3 74 11 5 E , 70,529 617 2 6 710 13 1 93 10 7