TAXES AND LOANS

Otago Daily Times, Issue 24432, 18 October 1940, Page 3

TAXES AND LOANS

TO THE EDITOR

Sir,—The complications and obscurities of various taxing Bills have always puzzled the ordinary citizen, but we have now reached the stage when the Government’s own experts and officials are almost equally bewildered. I covered some sheets of paper with figures trying to decide how much I must contribute to the fprced loan, but finally made a guess at it and paid up. The loan is said by Mr. Nash to be a voluntary one. but this is only a little joke on his part. The distinction between a tax and a loan should be quite clear. The first is always compulsory, the latter should be voluntary. This loan is what Kipling would call a “giddy haruraphrodite.” part tax and part loan. A bond for £IOO in this loan is worth about £BO the minute after it is issued. It is therefore clear that 20 per cent, represents a tax —only 80 per cent, a loan. Moreover, the bonds have different values in different hands. It is clear that a bond with a market value of £BO, which is worth £IOO for death duty purposes, is much more valuable to a man of 90 years than to a man of 20 years. Even in the same hands the bonds will have different values. One bond may pay £IOO of death duties, while another exactly the same may pay only £7O or £BO duty. It is exactly the same as if my pound note would be worth 20s while yours would only be worth 15s. Every highwayman from Dick Turpin to Ned Kelly was in favour of voluntary contributions from their victims. They only used compulsion when the hand-out was resisted. I shall not pursue the analogy further, but shall just say that most people are prepared to pay taxes to the limit of ability to help the war effort, but resent these half-pie com-pulsory-voluntary methods which are unfair in their incidence and attempt to hide a tax under guise of a loan.—l am. etc.. James Begg