SMALL TRADERS MENACED

Te Awamutu Courier, Volume 53, Issue 3821, 14 October 1936, Page 5

SMALL TRADERS MENACED

“ GOVERNMENT’S DELIBERATE EFFORT.” The contention that the Land and Income Tax (Annual) Bill was nothing more or less than a deliberate effort to make the way of the small business man and the man ot medium income impossible, and that it would make it impossible for men of that description to carry on effectively, was advanced by Mr W. J. Broadfoot, M.P. for Waitomo, when criticising the Government’s taxation proposals in the House of Representatives. The need to break up big estates did not exist to-day, he said, and therefore there was no need for the graduated land tax, and the tax had been imposed for the sole reason of securing more revenue. Illustrating how the graduated land tax dealt harshly, Mr Broadfoot quoted a case where taxation had increased from £l5l to £746, and quoted another case where the tax had increased from £143 to £673. Dealing with the income tax, he said that the burden was being spread over the moderate incomes, and on a £5OO income there was ap increase of about 70 per cent. There were 30,256 taxpayers in the income group of £3OO to £6OO, and that group represented more than half the total number ot income taxpayers. Last year that group paid £221,000, and this year they would be asked to pay £300,000. The man with the medium income was the backbone of the country, and the taxation was a direct method to cripple individualism. Mr Broadfoot quoted figures to show clearly that the higher incomes were not being penalised to the'extent the smaller incomes were. • -