INCOME AND TAXES

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LXV, Issue 19698, 2 August 1938, Page 7

INCOME AND TAXES

MR. HERRING'S ANSWER SOURCE OF INFORMATION (l?or Press Association.) ASHBURTON, this day. Replying to the Associated Chambers of Commerce, Mr. H. E. Herring, Labour M.P. for Mid-Canterbury, says that not having Hansard proof, his very strong impression is that he read in the House the printed record of the Chambers' Conference in Timaru, paying especiaL attention to a remark by a delegate that the business community would have to shoulder the impost now borne by others. "A newspaper gives it as 'The sales tax reached people not otherwise touched by taxation, and the business community would have to pay if the tax were abolished.' "For the year.' 1933-34 to 1938-39 I relied on the aggregate private income figures on page 737 of the 1938 Year Book, on figures given in the 1937 and 1938 Budgets, on estimates from the Department of Finance, and on taxation figures from the same sources," said Mr. Herring. Regarding the figures in the graph, a fortnight had passed since the Statistician had made the remark about data, and it was possible also that figures were available to a member of Parliament that were not readily provided for otters. Mr. Herring, referring to the call made uoon him on Friday by "Mr. Associated Chambers of Commerce," recalls an invitation to the latter to read in the Evening Post of Friday extracts from the report of the Labour Department anent the receipts from income other than salaries or wage? for 1937-38. ■'lt will intrigue him, stating as it does that receipts from this source 'have Shown a further increase of some millions.' Answering the comment that the graphs did not deal with the Chambers' case "that in 1928-9 etc.," Mr. Herring says: "I at no time claimed that the graphs and figures dealt with this. They were a set of figures taking the aggregate private income and aggregate taxation for the years since 1934-35, and expressing the latter as a fraction of the former. They are nothing else and were never intended to bo anything else. 1 think I made this clear to 'Mr. Associated Chambers of Commerce' when he called on me."