BUILDING SOCIETY PROFITS.

Southland Times, Issue 21728, 14 June 1932, Page 7

BUILDING SOCIETY PROFITS.

To the Editor. Sir,—Kindly allow me a little space to enter a protest against the attitude of the Government in penalizing the man who is paying off his house through the Southland Building Society. As you are aware we pay the same amount of interest per week on the last five pounds as we do on the first five hundred and if we did not get some rebate or profits as the society term it, we would be paying an enormous price for our homes. Now the Government has stepped in and is demanding one shilling in the pound of those profits which we never get as they don’t belong to us. Here is an example. A friend of mine with eight children whose shares showed profits for the year at £2O had to find twenty shillings to hand over to the Government. The Society would not give it to him, so what happened? The butcher, the baker and the grocer had to bear the loss between them and they have got Buckley's chance of ever getting it, unless the Government sees fit to make a refund of this abominable tax. Why single out Building Society mortgages and let all others go free? I put this question to Mr Hargest at one of his small meetings and he suggested that the society should protect us by calling it other than profits, but promised to look into the matter. Possibly it slipped his memory; but it is not too late yet for a remedy. —I am, etc., PLAIN EDDIE.