Taranaki Herald. WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 26, 1910. THE INCOME TAX.

Taranaki Herald, Volume LVIII, Issue 14346, 26 October 1910, Page 2

Taranaki Herald. WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 26, 1910. THE INCOME TAX.

The Lund mid Income Tax Bill, providing for the graduation and increase of the income tax, passed through the committee stage in the House of Representatives during the small hours of this morning, and may now' be considered as good as passed, although Mr. Taylor has signified his intention to oppose the third reading. This Bill has come upon the country as a surprise, for there was no hint in the Governor’s Speech at the opening of Parliament, nor in the Financial Statement, that the Government contemplated such a measure. The .Minister of Finance remarked, in the Statement, that he estimated to receive £BIOS more during the current year than the actual collection of 1909-10, but, having regard to the improvement in trade, he had little doubt, that his estimate would he realised. Not a suggestion of any increase in the rate or alteration in the incidence, though two years ago, in his Financial Statement, he did suggest something of the kind as a means of providing - for the increased cost of defence. Last night Sir Joseph Watd said he believed that the classes upon whom the increased taxation was to he imposed did not object to the graduated income tax. That may he so; there has, at any rate, been no very loud complaint as yet on the score of the graduation. With respect to the increase in the tax, however, there is very general objection to raising another £IOO,OOO or more of general taxation without any apparent reason. The surplus for the current year was estimated in the Financial Statement at £750,000, and there is every probability of that estimate being more than realised. Why, then, is it necessary to increase taxation ? No extraordinary unforeseen demand upon the Consolidated Fund has, so far as the country is aware, arisen to render it necessary, and Sir Joseph Ward has not offered any explanation. The income tax is a very convenient form of revenue, easily and cheaply collected, and should be kept normally at such an amount that in an emergency it may he called upon to furnish additional funds that are urgently required. If simultaneously with the increase, the Customs surtax taxation in some other direction had been proposed to be remitted we could have understood it, or if the graduation principle only hud been applied by reducing the tax at the bottom and raising it correspondingly at the top of the scale the country could have appreciated the change. But to make a sudden demand upon the taxpayers for another £IOO,OOO, at a time when there is a probability of a surplus approaching a round million, certainly seems to require some explanation.