POLITICAL DEBAUCHERY

Otago Daily Times, Issue 25589, 17 July 1944, Page 6

POLITICAL DEBAUCHERY

Sir, —My protest, as Mr MacManus knows quite well, was against civil expenditure that is not directly related to the prosecution of Ihe war, being charged against the War* Expenses Account. I also objected to there being one law for the powerful trade unionist who receives payment for overtime from money obtained by taxation or borrowing for war purposes, and another law for the weak and politically impotent who suffer mostly from taxation. An interesting example of Mr Nash’s ingenious and vicious system of double taxation is provided by the case of a married railwayman with two children receiving £4OO a year. In wages tax alone he pays £SO, which leaves him a net income of £350 a year. For income tax purposes he receives a basic exemption of £2OO, plus £l5O for his wife and children—a total exemption of £350. He is then forced to pay income tax on the £SO he has not received, notwithstanding the fact that in compulsory superannuation and sick benefits he pays a further £4O a year, for which he receives no benefits. This man is actually working 11 weeks each year to pay his taxes. In 1929 a single man with 15 years’ service, after superannuation had been deducted, received £319. To-day, 15 years later, although married, with a wife and five children to keep, and occupying a nighly responsible railway administration position, his income. after taxes and superannuation charges have been deducted, is £316 a year, or £3 less than it was 15 years ago. A wonderful example of progressive debauchery at its best, and even more so when we remember that in 1935 Mr Langstonc said taxation should not be levied on the poorer classes of the community to give bounties to the more wealthy citizens. Mr Fraser in 1916 said that conscription was not so much for the purpose of winning the war as to hold the workers effectively in subjection when the post-war period is reached, and war loans inevitably mean postponed paymen - with more interest for the moneyed classes, and greater burdens for future generations. So we have, as I am sure Mr MacManus' will admit, a Government so busy somersaulting that it does not know whether it is on its head or its heels.—l am, etc., Matilda.