HEAVY TAXATION

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 713, 12 July 1929, Page 12

HEAVY TAXATION

GENERAL REVISION URGENTLY REQUIRED ILLUMINATING FIGURES The following arc the salient features of the presidential address to the New Zealand Racing Conference at Wellington on behalf of Sir George I Clifford, who was unable to be | present: “I urge most strongly on owners i and breeders of thoroughbred horses to be most careful in registering j names, and. to fill in all required de- } tails on the forms supplied for the j purpose by the secretary of the con- : ferencc, with all brands and birth or ! accidental marks. Instances are not : far to seek in which attention to j these provisions against fraud or re- | suits of negligences have proved sig- i nally effective in saving serious consequences. “Seeing the great value of the New Zealand Stud Book t.o all interested in the sport of racing, it seems incredible that any owners, breeders or clubs should fail to keep a full set of such invaluable records, or to omit subscription to its periodic issue. I appeal to breeders to return regularly and promptly each season the coverings and foalings *of their brood mares to the compiler. “I am strongly averse to the proposal to permit, again, the registration of assumed names for owners—a practice years since abandoned in Great Britain. “The increasing demand for New Zealand-bred horses is shown by the fact that over 200 horses were sold or dispatched to Australia during the current season, recalling what an increasing market exists for our stock abroad, though our Government does not encourage breeding as other Governments do. “The amounts of the various taxes paid during the present and previous seasons are as follow, the previous year’s figures being in parentheses: Totalisator tax, 2t per cent. (£140,841 19s Id) £124,296 15s 9d; dividend tax, 5 per cent. (£253,482 19s 3d) £223,731 2s Id: stakes tax, 5 per cent. (£21,063 6s) £19,700 16s 6d: amusement tax (£13,946 2s 7d) £12,505 19s; receipts tax, 2-1 per cent. (£1.171 Cs) repealed in 1927; land tax (£2,840 17s Sd) £ 2,754 16s: income-tax on interest £l9O 16s 3d: total (£433,340 0s 7d) £ 353.219 5s 7d; local rates (£ 10.677 Is 9d) £9,137 7s 4d. “A. general revision of the system of racing taxation is urgently required. in some cases so far from the tax being based on the income of the individual, it is actually levied on a debit balance. This obviously tends ultimately to dry up the fountain of supply. We have again represented our case to the Government, and we look for the relief so urgently required. “In the interests of the harassed horse-owners, the public which desires a day’s recreation at a reasonable fare, and the Railway Department itself, we appeal for the reinstatement of the former concession of a single fare, and the return journey free for racehorses, and that the fares by race trains ought to be not greater than the usual excursion rate. The railway charges are driving horse-owners to use properly equipped motor-lorries for the transport of their horses, and this method is meeting with great and increasing favour. The argument of the department’s officials in the past has been ‘that racehorse traffic is by no means a remunerative proposition to the railways.’ This statement is doubted, inasmuch as racehorse traffic is vital to a very profitable consequential traffic, a fact which the railway returns must verify. It is submitted that Die Railway Department's revenue from people travelling by rail to race meetings is so profitable that it is only fair and businesslike to set off against that revenue the railway carriage of racehorses. If horseowners are not given every inducement to send their horses by rail to the various race meetings, and thereby make the meetings attractive, the department’s revenue, and that of the clubs, and the* Government, must suffer accordingly.”