COMPANY TAXATION

Te Awamutu Courier, Volume 72, Issue 6238, 5 June 1946, Page 6

COMPANY TAXATION

“REDUCTION LONG OVERDUE” “Peace-time trading is returning, but the war-time troubles of restrictions, price control, and oppresive taxation remain,” said the chairman of Donaghy’s Rope and Twine Comipany, Ltd., Mr J. H. Meek, at the annual meeting of the company. The “deadening effect” of presentday taxation was illustrated by Mr Meek with statistics from the last operations of the company and its subsidiary. Direct taxation had absorbed £215,000. Sales tax collected on behalf of the Government over the same period amounted to £120,000, and; wages tax to £53,000, making a total of £388,000 in taxation paid by the efforts of the industry, or amounting to three times the capital cf the company. Shareholders over the same six-year period had received a total of £75,000. “I wonder if it is realised that the net profit on our total sales is only 2J ner cent?” asked Mr Meek. “If the total net profit was divided among our employees, leaving nothing for shareholders, the employees would receive only 15s extra a week. During the war little objection was raised regarding taxation, but it must be obvious to all that some substantial reduction is long overdue.”