HIGHEST TAXES IN WORLD

Taranaki Daily News, 12 September 1934, Page 6

HIGHEST TAXES IN WORLD

BURDEN ON NEW ZEALANDERS WARNING BY MR. C. A. WILKINSON. BUDGET FEATURES ASSAILED. ' MR. COATES’ POLICY CRITICISED. (By Wire— Parliamentary Reporter). Wellington, Last Night. “New Zealand to-day is the highest taxed community in the world,” declared Mr. C. A. Wilkinson (Ind., Egmont) in the House to-night when assailing features of Mr. Coates’ budgetary policy. What Coalition supporters regarded as a balanced budget was no such thing, said Mr. Wilkinson, who pointed out that over the last four years the Dominion had gone back in the revenue account by £9,500,000. Members could hardly describe as “balanced and cheerful” a budget that showed a deficit of £2,700,000. There was no reduction in general taxation, and an analysis of the increases in taxation made in recent years was illuminating. In 1933 general taxation amounted to £l2 17s 9d per head and local government taxation to £3 19s sd. This year the total tax instead of being less than £l7 per head as in 1933 would on the Budget estimates amount to £2O per head. That, of course, included local government taxation. In 1932 the gross amount collected by taxation was £17,405,000, in 1933 £19,703,000 and in 1934 £21,586,000. For the current financial year the estimate was £23,575,000. Thus there had been a continued increase in the amount collected of £2,000,000 annually. * Whereas Mr. Coates estimated a surplus of £BOOO for the year Mr. Ransom’s estimate was of a credit balance of £1,000,000. If the latter proved correct there would be a - record increase in taxation collected.

“The people of New Zealand are being slowly strangled by high taxation*’ declared Mr. Wilkinson, "and I urge the Government to immediately consider the question of reducing this heavy impost. The first tax to be reduced should be the sales tax, either by a lowering of the amount or exempting further classes of goods from its operation.” It was noted by Mr. Wilkinson that the public debt had assumed staggering proportions—the total was approaching £3oo,ooo,ooo—and he sounded a note of warning against increasing that vast sum.