Child Benefit Payments Held Inconsistent With Man’s Personal Freedom

Otago Daily Times, Issue 26957, 17 December 1948, Page 5

Child Benefit Payments Held Inconsistent With Man’s Personal Freedom

Special to the Daily Times WELLINGTON, Dec.l6. The submission that payment of family benefits under the Social Security Act was an interference with the right of man to support his family directly out of his own earnings was made by Cecil Herbert Andrews, a business man, in the Magistrate’s Court to-day. He was defending a claim against him by the Commissioner of Taxes for £45 Is 4d representing the balance due on social security and national security taxes. Andrews, who has six children, has declined to accept, as has his wife, the £2 10s a week family benefit payable in respect of five of them. He conducted his own case. He said that the family benefit was in the nature of a State subsidy or gratuity and also that the State should not have the first claim on a man’s income. The first claim, he submitted., was that of a man’s family. . Mr Thompson, S.M., gave judgment for the Commissioner, who was represented by Mr W. R. Birks.

Mr Birks said the Commissioner of - Taxes was invested by law with the ' same powers and responsibility for the i collection of social security tax as was the case with income tax. He understood that there was no question as to the correctness of the assessments. Andrews, addressing the court, said that the question was what were a man’s responsibilities and duties. It was not a matter of money, but of principle. He wanted to know where a man stood in relation to his own

home—whether his first duty was to the State through payment of tax on every penr/y he earned or the maintenance of his family first and then meeting his obligations to the State to the best of his ability.. When family benefits were introduced, he considered as a father that certain aspects of such benefits struck into the very heart of the home. He did not wish his wife

to collect the family benefit, and in effect have his children brought up ' under a form of State subsidy. He maintained that it was his right to maintain his family from his own purse and he had a greater right to his own earnings than did the State, which required the use of some of his money and in return offered benefits which might be subsidised by other people. A man should either be a taxpayer or, if circumstances demanded it, a State beneficiary, but not both. He had unsuccessfully endeavoured to obtain from Ministers of the Crown a clear-cut statement of the constitutional position. The magistrate said it was not competent for him to go into the issue that the defendant raised about his right to spend his own mofiey in his own way. He could only apply the law, the making of which was a matter for the Legislature. The only authority which could do anything for the defendant was the Government Andrews, in evidence, stated that he was a British subject, and had his birth certificate with him. He came to court claiming the lawful right of every British subject in seeking the court’s protection. He had endeavoured to see that this was so in the present case without success. He maintained that it was in the public interest that he had requested his wife not to collect the family benefit, and he had asked that the . amount be der ducted from, taxation which might become due. To do this meant less unproductive labour engaged on col-? lection, and in turn, distribution, and from an individual’s viewpoint, it showed self-reliance. On May 8. 1948. he wrote to the Minister of Finance. Mr Nash, as follows:—“ Enclosed herewith please find Reserve Bank warrant for £4B 13s. being the balance of an amount loaned interest-free to the Government in response to an appeal to ‘ lend to defend the right to be free.’ Though some of the threats to our freedom have been overcome. I feel''that even bigger threats are on the horizon, and there is still much of our freedom to be defended. Consequently, I consider it would be very wrong for me to cash this warrant, and I accordingly return it, believing that there is ample scope for the Government to continue defending our freedom, and the amount will help in particular.

“I trust that this amount may assist in defending our personal freedom such as the freedom to run our own homes in our own way according to our own philosophy—freedom from outside coercion in the home, freedom to use our earnings to bring up our families in preference to having to bring them. up on State gratuities, freedom to bring up our children to think for themselves and become selfreliant citizens with pride that they are following in the footsteps of the pioneers of this country, freedom to provide for the contingencies of life for our children rather than providing retiring allowances for ex-politicians and ex-statesmen and trusting to luck that they will provide for our children in their latter years. .1 trust that I may live to experience these freedoms ana that I will not need this amount for an unusual set of conditions. In the meantime. I shall be glad if you will regard it as an interest-free loan.’’ The magistrate said that none of this was helpful in deciding the matter before him. He could offer no useful comment on the defendant's challenging of the right of the Government to introduce the legislation to which he objected. As the law stood, the tax had been properly levied. Mr Birks said that” it was in the hands of the defendant and his wife to divert the family benefit to the Land and Income Tax Department. If both parties were agreeable an assignment of the benefit would be a practical way of meeting the defendant’s objection. The defendant, he said, had six children. The magistrate said the claim by the department had been properly established, and judgment would be given for the £45 Is 4d claimed, with costs.