NEW FILM TAX

Southland Times, Issue 21192, 19 September 1930, Page 8

NEW FILM TAX

GOVERNMENT’S STAND INTERFERENCE NOT TO BE TOLERATED STATEMENT BY MR RANSOM (Per United Press Association.) Wellington, September 18. Interviewed this morning, Sir Victor Wilson, president of the Film Distributors’ Association, said it was quite correct that he had received a letter from the acting-Prime Minister (the Hon. E. A. Ransom) stating that the Government was not prepared to re-open investigation or have an inquiry into the position. Sir Victor said that he hoped to make a complete statement of the whole case Within the next day or so, as he believed that not only the trade but also the public were entitled to know the whole of the circumstances of the present lock-out in the film industry. Mr Ransom says that if the tax brings in more than is anticipated by the Government it can only mean that the net rentals, after deducting administrative expenses and the amount on which income tax is payable, are greater than was estimated. If the rentals are greater it simply means that the surplus remaining for the film companies is greater than if the yield from the tax was less. Thus renters should be the last to complain of a tax producing more than estimated. After quoting the points made by the Minister of Internal Affairs in reply to a recent deputation, Mr Ransom says that distributors have to explain why the tax is confiscatory and causes a lock-out while taxation in Australia involving the same percentage of gross rentals, can be accepted with more or less equanimity. British film producers who share the principles involved in the tax have raised no such questions as lock-outs and boycotts, but, on the contrary, have assured the Government of their determination to carry on with the hope that when times are better the Government will agree to review the matter. In regard to the statement: “The distributors’ action is not bluff. Having withdrawn under Mr Hay’s instructions they must stay out until Mr Hay gives them permission to recommence business,” Mr Ransome says: “In this connection let me say that the industry must clearly understand that the Government will not tolerate interference in the domestic affairs of the Dominion on the part of any foreign corporations.”