“EQUITABLE AND JUST”

Southland Times, Issue 24182, 19 July 1940, Page 6

“EQUITABLE AND JUST”

NATIONAL SECURITY TAX PROCEDURE EXPLAINED BY MR NASH (From Our Parliamentary Reporter) WELLINGTON, July 18. “I still think after a lot of study and endeavour to remove the disability from those on the lower incomes that the measure now before the House, and which will realize about £5,500,000, is equitable and just,” declared the Minister of Finance (the Hon. W. Nash) in the House this evening when speaking on the proposal in the Finance Bill to impose a National Security tax of 1/in the £l. He regarded this as one of the major features of the Bill. “There are difficulties about those on lower incomes,” he said, “and if there is a way of meeting them, though I cannot see one inside the present procedure, the Government, I am certain, will try and do something.” Mr Nash explained that the procedure for collecting the new tax would duplicate that for collecting the Social Security Tax. “Instead of buying stamps for 1/- in the £1 you buy them for 2/- in the £l,” he explained. Mr A. E. Jull (Nat., Waipawa): Will a separate book be needed? Mr Nash: No. Both will be paid together. Mr Nash went on to say that those people who received income other than salary or wages would have to pay roughly three-quarters of what they paid last year in the Social Security tax. “That,” he added, “covers all the difficulties.”