NEW ZEALAND INCOMES

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LV, Issue 17230, 9 April 1930, Page 6

NEW ZEALAND INCOMES

ANALYSIS OF FIGUKES TAXATION STATISTICS : In the upward trend of the national income of New Zealand there is a decline in the number of incomes in the highest scale of £IOO,OOO and over. (The latest returns show that there were 13 incomes of the six-figure range in 192829, compared with 17 in 1926. Incomes in the lower ranges have, meanwhile, been increasing in number and have swelled the total. They have also raised the average. Although the incomes returned in 1927-28 were nearly 20,000 more in number and nearly £4,000,000 more in aggregate amount than in 1926-27, taxpayers showed an increase of only slightly more than 3000, and the taxable balance actually declined by more than £1,000,000. The explanation, states the Government Statistician, lies in the fact that the whole of the increase is accounted for by incomes under £SOO. Incomes of that amount and more, particularly in the higher levels, have actually declined. The inclusion of so many small incomes for the first time in the 1927-28 statistics largely destroys their comparability with earlier years. The aver-" ages, proportions, and other factors are. seriously affected. The alteration in the ordinary exemption reductions is another factor, affecting exemptions, balance, and tax, and the tax imposed is also increased in the case.of certain l categories by a change in the gradations of the taxation scale. The .figures for 1927-28, however, are quite comparable with those for 1928-29, and it is interesting to note that a definite increase holds for incomes botluunder and over £SOO. .' ' 108,286 RETURNS. The Commissioner of Taxes received 108,286 returns for the financial year 1928-29, the general class of taxpayer accounting for 103,614. Of those in the general class, no fewer than 33,836 had an income of less than £3OO, and only 1578 of these, absentees, or trustees, or otherwise not entitled to exemption, were asessed for tax. Of 69,779 persons with incomes of £3OO or Over, 46,752 were assessed as having to pay income tax, the remaining 23,027 haying no taxable balance left after the various exemptions and deductions had been taken into account. Of the 3262 companies concerned in the returns, 156 escaped taxation through the application of the capital value exemption. The general class represents the great majority of the returns, and it occu* pies a similar position in regard to taxpayers, though in this respect its proportion of the total is somewhat less, for example, 91 per cent, as compared with 96 per cent, shown as its proportion of the returns.

The gross assessable income in 1928- j 29 was £61,026,507, of which £36,363,375 ranked as earned income, and as such became entitled to a, reduction of 10 per cent, in taxation. The taxable, balance, after allowing for all exemptions, was £29,535,984, or 48 per cent, of the gross assessable income. Revenue from income tax during the year ended March 31, 1929, was £3,310,877. This amount is £144,869 in excess of the total tax shown as having been assessed for the same year, the difference being partly due to the imposition of an additional 5 per cent, the event of late payment, partly to the inclusion of arrears in the total of tax collected, and partly to the omission of a few returns from the statistical tables. » ' ; As an indication of,*the increase 1 in the assessable income of New Zealand in the past ,15 years, the total in 191415 was £13,850,261; in 1917,18, £36,645.373; in 1920-21, £48,606,807; in 1925-26, £52,632,488; and in 1928-29, £61,026,507. The tremendous increase following 1914 was diie, largely to currency inflation arising out o? war conditions. The estimated private wealth pet , head of population, for persons of 20 years and over, was £424 in 1914 and £Bl7 in 1928, but taken on the basis of the standard of wholesale prices for ' 190943, the private wealth was £387 per head in 1914, and £525 in 1928.