LAND TAX PROPOSALS

Otago Daily Times, Issue 21360, 13 June 1931, Page 11

LAND TAX PROPOSALS

HOUSE OF COMMONS BILL THE LIBERAL AMENDMENT (United Press Association.) (By Electric Telegraph—Copyright.) LONDON, June 11. The situation that will arise next week in the House o£ Commons when * the Liberal amendment to the land tax proposals in the Government’s Finance Bill will be discussed was described by Mr Lloyd George in a speech at Edinburgh to-day as critical. The Liberals propose that the tax shall fall exclusively on undeveloped land by conceding to owners the right to deduct from the land tax the amount paid on the same land as income tax. The newspapers state tht the Government will resist the amendment, which the chief Liberal whip declares will be pressed. . Mr Lloyd George said they were taking this attitude, not to create embarrassment for the Government, but because they demanded fair treatment for owners of land. —— LEADER OF THE LIBERALS. A SIGNIFICANT DECLARATION, i LONDON, June 12. (Received June 12, at 9 p.m.) Despite Mr \Lloyd George’s challenge, which is featured in the newspapers, there are suggestions in several quarters that there will be many conferences during the week-end in an attempt to find a way out of the deadlock. Commentators agree that neither the Liberals nor the Government desire an early election upon the taxation question, which does not operate until 1033. A meeting of Liberal members of the House of Commons spent several hours on Thursday discussing possible modifications of the amendment, but the final wording will not be adopted until a full party meeting on Monday. Both the Liberal and Labour press direct attention to Mr Lloyd George’s declaration in an article in a Scottish Labour paper this week; “An election now might mean another five years of Tory rule, with reaction reigning at home and abroad, which would be a calamity.” The Daily Herald, in an editorial, says that the Government cannot and will not accept the amendment, which would reduce the expected land tax revenue of £5,000,000 by more than one-half and nullify all the provisions for the valuation of improved and built on land aiming at the rating of future land values. The Herald suggests that the Liberals will not dare to force an election in which they would enter the campaign with the odium of having destroyed the land' tax.