BURDEN OF TAX ON FARM LANDS

Sun (Auckland), Volume 1, Issue 86, 2 July 1927, Page 5

BURDEN OF TAX ON FARM LANDS

HEAVY LOCAL RATES MINISTER DEFENDS STATE (THE SUN’S Parliamentary Reporter .) WELLINGTON, Friday. The only tax which is hitting the farmer really hard to-day is the local tax, and this has risen to such an extent that in some districts it amounts to almost a rent, declared the Hon. A. D. McLeod, Minister of Lands, to-night, when defending the Government’s attitude toward the man cn the land.

The trouble was, the Minister added, that people had not expressed their voice against this rapidly rising burden in the place where their opinions should have found expressioii—the ballot box, and yet there were those who were opposed to the control of this continual borrowing by local bodies.

Difficulties had been experienced with soldier settlers in different parts of the country, for many adopted the attitude that they would not pay, and carried this out literally. The Crown had in cases delayed collection of its payments, and in cases met the commitments, but it was later found that the stock was being sold /over its head, and the State was b;eing left lamenting. The Crown had then decided, in certain cases, to tighten up on some of the defaulters to prove that the Crown had a claim for stock. Agents wepe selling the stock up and leaving tne Crown’s interest unwatched.

The Minister, claimed that the Government at least assisted the farmers of New Zealand by shifting some of the burden of the tax from the backs of the farmer. It was distributed more equitably over the general community so that the general public would carry some share of what the farmers had been finding it extremely difficult to carry under present conditions.

As far as Crown tenants are concerned Mr. McLeod said those who were voicing that cry were doing more harm in the direction of upsetting farmers’ finance than anything else. There was the well-known example of the professed friend of the producer who in one breath declared that men were walking off their farms and in the next endeavoured to have the same land financed. \ Member: There are a number of men who have walked off their holdThe Minister: I am well aware of that —more than I like to see. I have before me figures up to March 31 last for the total Crown leases and those that are in process of being converted into freehold. The total holders are 99 263 and the total number of forfeitures and surrenders 430, or 1.469 per cent of the total. It is the highest percentage since 1910, when the percent- " The admitted that in regard to private holdings the percentair© might be larger, and he reterred to the difficulty of securing complete information in that connection.