The Sun 42 Wyndham Street, Auckland, N.Z. SATURDAY, MAY 28, 1927. POLITICAL HIGHWAYMEN

Sun (Auckland), Volume 1, Issue 56, 28 May 1927, Page 10

The Sun 42 Wyndham Street, Auckland, N.Z. SATURDAY, MAY 28, 1927. POLITICAL HIGHWAYMEN

THERE are worse annoyances in Auckland lliese days than exaggerated burglaries and elusive Bolshevik agents. There . are thousands of taxation forms with ample scope within their folds for the practice of dishonesty on the one side and, on the other, barefaced, but legalised robbery. Indeed, it is reasonable to say that, in a political sense, of course, the greatest bandit in the country is the State. It means to take from the people this year about £ 17,000,000 in all sorts of imposts and taxes. Its methods, all properly within the law and quite in accordance with the principles of Christianity are such as to make those of old-fashioned highwaymen look like the pranks of children. Taxes upon everything that is required to sustain life and make living worth while are estimated to yield £7,650,000. That ransom will he collected by Customs officers, and accepted by the ruthless Government as revenue. The fact that every penny of duty is passed on to the public with extra charges for the trouble of calculating the Customs rate is ignored by the administrative Barabbas. Then, beer will contribute half a million pounds to the Treasury. Stamp and death duties are scheduled ghoulishly to produce well over £3,000,000, land tax £1,200,000 and income tax £3,300,000. Other sums will he taken from those who deal in mortgages. Taxation in any form is a necessary evil, hut the manner in which political administrators use and abuse the revenue from it has made its practice a curse. If anything like first-class government and national progress were gained as the results of big expenditure, the average taxpayer would not seriously protest. As things are, however, he has every reason for complaint about the waste of public money and the Government’s failure to practise rigorous economy. Because of that failure taxation has not been reduced. Until the burden upon taxpayers has been diminished the Reform Administration cannot claim to have achieved outstanding success. Meanwhile, the leading administrators exhort everybody else to be thrifty and to save money against had times; but if a taxpayer manages hv dint of valiant economy to deposit a few pounds in the Post Office Savings Bank, the tax-collector immediately takes a share of the meagre interest the Government pays for the use of the deposited money. No doubt that double exaction is necessary, being needed probably to make up for the exemption to public servants on contributions to the superannuation fund, which largely eliminates the necessity for them to save money for old age and infirmity. Perhaps there is some consolation in comparisons. Elsewhere things are worse even under better government. In Great Britain, for example, complainants assert bitterly that if Adam llad realised when he emerged from the untaxed delights of the Garden of Eden that he was going to inflict the curse of taxation upon the world, he would not have fallen so easily as he did. It is to be regretted that taxes are not collected on the eve of every general election. If that were introduced, the politicians, who have made taxation an evil thing, would receive the punishment they deserve. But, then, they are as cunning as foxes, and win favour by promising to reduce taxes and get things done.