DEATH DUTIES.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 19532, 15 July 1925, Page 11

DEATH DUTIES.

TO THE EDITOB. SIE, —Mr W. J. Tennent brings forward two points in favour of death duties. The first is that 4 a man should pay his debt to the State for all the privileges he has enjoyed during his lifetime. I believe in the principle of “pay as you go,” not, as Mr Tennent puts it, when you go out of partnership. Why leave the payment of this debt to the whim of the grim reaper, whose policy is that “one shall be taken and the other left?” To my mind the first principle of taxation is that all should be made to pay and none should be left. Mr Tennent says: "‘Most people provide in their wills for the payment of their just debts, and this is one of them.” Exactly. Yet, under this wonderful system, a man may live for 80 years, may handle and pass on any amount of money, and almost entirely evade payment of his debt to the State. Mr Tennent’s second point does not help his case. To bring forward death duties as a “cure” for multi-millionaires is too much like trying to lock the stable door after the horse has been stolen. The time to make millionaires pay for their keep is now. If tho “square up” or “readjustment” is left till the end of the partnership I am afraid that both their wealth and their power will be largely beyond the clutches of even "United States, Unlimited.” —I am, etc.. Experience.