LAND AND INCOME TAX

New Zealand Times, Volume XLVIII, Issue 11048, 3 November 1921, Page 4

LAND AND INCOME TAX

BY PROMISSORY NOTE ACCEPTED BEFORE, BUT NOT WANTED AT PRESENT. PRIME MINISTER’S STATEMENT. Was it not a fact that- tlie Commissioner of Taxes had accepted promissory notes in payment of income tax from a number of taxpayers last year? asked Mr W. D. Lysnar (Gisborne); and, if so, would it not' be possible to make some such arrangement this year in connection with the land tax; subject, of course, to compensation for the cost to *the Government of discounting the promissory notes ? The present time, the hon. member urged, was a very awkward one for farmers to have to find money; and if a little time was given them, a few months to get their wool in and their meat into the freezing works, it would help them very much. Tho Prime Minister replied that it was correct to say that promissory notes were taken by the Commissioner of Taxes in payment of land tax on the last oocasion, and even for income tax, he thought. In every case, he believed, they were duly honoured, and the Government lost no money through them. But a change had taken place in regard to financial matters since then, and promissory notes werje no good to the department unless the banks would discount them. Mr Lysnar: Get the Bank of New Zealand, the Government bank, to discount them. Mr Massey: Even in the case of the Bank of New Zealand there is a limit to advances which the banks are prepared to make. If the hon. member would look at the record of advances recently made by the hanks, especially by the Bank of New Zealand, he would find that they were something enormous. He could, therefore, only repeat what he had said the day before, that the Government was not going to inflict hardship upon anybody ‘ if it could possibly help it. The Government must have money to carry on the business of the country; hut by the bill introdrfeed the previous day, it had shown its desire to make things ns easy as possible for the taxpayers. He could hot state explicitly that the department would accept promissory notes from every individual who prpfered them; hut the department and the Government would do the best they possibly could under the circumstances.