TAXATION ANOMALIES.

Taranaki Daily News, 27 May 1933, Page 6

TAXATION ANOMALIES.

The decision of the Government of Great Britain to place co-operative trading societies upon the same footing as private trading concerns in regard to income tax is another instance of the tightening up of the Government’s policy in regard to commercial affairs generally. With the abandonment of the free trade policy has come a closer association of State policy with the commercial life of the nation. There is, however, no greater tendency towards actual State interference in commercial undertakings On the contrary, movements such as the recently-formed transport authority for London show a weakened rather than a strengthened belief in the efficacy of public management of commercial undertakings. But in regard to providing opportunities for primary and secondary industries the Home Government is shaping its policy in a manner which indicates the altered outlook. While such a policy may benefit producers it has its observe side. It means a stricter supervision of the field for taxation, and the action in regard to co-operative societies is one of the results. In the Dominion there is a taxation anomaly just as inexplicable as the exemption hitherto of the co-operative societies in Britain. Local body trading departments in New Zealand, although they are in competition with private enterprise, are exempt from income tax. That is to say that ratepayers are often called upon to provide funds for the establishment of a local competitor with their own undertakings, a competitor, moreover, which enjoys immunity from one of the heaviest taxes private enterprise is called upon to bear. It is a curious feature of the policy of a Government which has been seeking for some years fresh sources of revenue that this anomaly in taxation shotild be allowed to continue. Possibly it is one more of the many questions to 'be left to that inquiry into the local government system so often promised and so long delayed.