THE BURDEN OF TAXATION

Southland Times, Issue 22962, 7 August 1936, Page 6

THE BURDEN OF TAXATION

Alarm Of Chambers Of Commerce (United Press Association.) Wellington, August 6. A statement by the Associated Chambers of Commerce on the Budget says: “The association views with the greatest of alarm the increased and staggering taxation proposed. The taxation is both in total and in amount per Lead of population greatly in excess of the taxation during any previous year, war years included. The Government claims to be following in the footsteps of Richard John Seddon. but on a per capita basis, the position is • that the citizen to-day will be called upon to pay in taxation nearly five times the amount he was called upon to pay during any year of the Seddon Government.

“The income tax rates will seriously hamper, and mav indeed cripple industrial and commercial activity and expansion. The association deplores the fact that the Government not only adheres to the present inequitable system of company taxation, but also proposes to increase the rates of company income tax. The Government seems blind to the fact that the income tax as proposed for companies is a tax on paper profits, not on dividends paid. The tax takes no account of the fact that profits may not be distributed, but may be required in business.” Among other matters raised, the statement says, of the comparison made with England, that if the unemployment tax is taken into account, the result would show clearly that New Zealand taxation is in excess of the taxation in England. “The Government’s proposals for the land tax seem to have no regard to the distinction between rural and urban land,” concludes the statement. “Of the latter, it cannot be said, as the Minister implies, that it is held in many cases for speculative profits rather than production. All this land is put to full commercial use. To impose upon such companies the burden of the graduated land tax, in addition to the increased income tax, will seriously handicap present business and stifle expansion and extension. In some cases, it may be that the land tax will ' be indirectly passed on to the general public and will thus swell the rising tide of the cost oi living. In other cases, it will turn reasonable commercial profits into losses.”