TAXATION INCIDENCE

Otago Daily Times, Issue 27078, 12 May 1949, Page 8

TAXATION INCIDENCE

REDUCTION ADVOCATED PUBLIC EXPENDITURE HELD EXCESSIVE PA AUCKLAND, May 11. Early and substantial reductions in taxation and public expenditure were advocated in a remit carried at the Associated Chambers of Commerce conference. Another remit adopted suggested that the one carried at the 1948 conference favouring the appointment of a Royal Commission be reaffirmed, and a third urged the abolition of the 15 per cent, surcharge on income tax. Speaking in support of the first remit, Professor A. H. Tocker, of the Canterbury Chamber, said . that last year taxation amounted to £122,000,000. About 1928, he said, a well-informed friend had said that further taxation was unthinkable. In that year taxation amounted tp £18,000,000. Taxation for.the present year was £126,000,000. Thfit figure did fjjbtTtnean much, but taxation took' feptit es 8d in the £ of all income isHraafessor Tocker said it was es%" mated 'that the total Government eSc# gjSAafiure amounted to £186,000,000« ■SMm/'half of the net income of tKd Siduijtry: Apparently the people or ’New Zealand spent about half of their 'income themselves and the other half was transferred to the Government and spent by it. The question was whether, the community got as much benefit from the half of the income spent by the Government as from the other half spent by the people themselves. , The Palmerston North Chamber considered that the work of designing a scientific taxation system was a job for experts, and the chamber therefore sponsored a motion asking for the setting up of a Royal Commission so that the incidence, of taxation and, in fact, the whole structure of it may be examined impartially.. The removal of price control from readily available goods was urged m a remit which was also carried. The remit stated that as many classes of goods were now available or potentially available in quantities which enabled competitive price levels to operate, the cpnference urged the Government to remove from price control immediately all classes of goods in adequate supply. .It also urged a policy of progressive decontrol as other classes of goods from time to time fell into that category