A REDUCTION OF TAXATION.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 15821, 21 July 1913, Page 4

A REDUCTION OF TAXATION.

If the Bill which has been introduced in, Parliament to provide for a special exemption in respect of dependent children in the case of income tax payers whose income exceeds £700 per annum represented all that the Government proposes in remission of taxation it might fittingly be viewed without very much enthusiasm. The people who are liable to pay income tax do not exactly constitute the class of the community with the best claim upon the Government for concessions if any are to be made. And to the extent that the proposal' under which the persons in receipt of the more moderate incomes are in certain circumstances to be relieved of a measure of taxation has preceded any proposal to reduce the taxation upon the more numerous class, composed of persons whose incomes are not sufficiently large to expose them to the liability of direct taxation, the opposition which has been expressed to it merits some sympathy. It is to be presumed, however, that it is to a remission of Custome duties that any proposal the Government may have in view for reducing the taxation upon the wage-earners will be directed. Ita initial difficulty in dealing with this matter will consist in the fact, if its opponents are to be believed, that unless a man be a drinker and a smoker he may even now escape pretty well all taxation upon articles of consumption. But it is mainly, result of the maintenance of a protective tariff upon a number of manufactured articles which Teally are necessaries of life in a civilised community that the indirect taxjtion that falls upon tha people of New Zealand is fairly hesry. The high prices which have to be paid for articles of clothing of all descriptions and for boots and shoes are the penalty accepted by the public in order that the country may keep up various manufacturing industries that supply employment to men and reluctant women under conditions as favourable to the workers aa agreements and awards' can make them. It would, however, involve a reversal of national policy if the protective duties that shelter these industries were withdrawn, and it is not to be anticipated that the Government will propose, anything so far-reaching. The fact remains that it is only through, freer competition in trade that any substantial reduction of the indirect taxation payable by the community may be effected. Any other proposals will be more or less palliative in their character, however unexceptionable they may be in principle, as the proposal which was under discussion in the Lower House last Friday night is. It is a proposal under which every taxpayer affected by it will be entitled to a special exemption of £25 from his yearly income in respect of each of his children; (not exceeding four) who is under 16 years of age and is dependent upon him. The discrimination between taxpayers who have families to rear and those who have not seems entirely reasonable and just.