TAX DEFAULTERS

Timaru Herald, Volume CXLVIII, Issue 21554, 17 January 1940, Page 4

TAX DEFAULTERS

NEW LAW to AVOID GAOL DURBAN, December 1. Crime among the natives of South Africa has for years been largely (in some years almost exclusively) failure to pay the Government taxes. More natives have received their first prison taint through a minor offence of this kind than through all the other minor and major crimes in the South African code. The Government has now introduced a law which is solely designed to keep native tax defaulters out of gaol. From January 1, 1940, only a fraction of the 60,000 or 70,000 natives who are convicted annually for being in arrear will go to gaol. It will no longer be necessary to charge the arrested defaulter with a criminal offence. Native commissioners will have power to arrange with an employer for the payment of taxes. If the defaulting native is not in employment the officials will be able to find work for him, the tax to be paid under a “stop order” system. The defaulter need not be sent to gaol. Instead, labour camps will be formed and natives sent to them will be required to work on road-making, irrigation works, municipal or other schemes. These institutions will be required to pay the wages prevailing in their area. Monthly deductions from the natives’ wages will be used for paying the tax and the balance for maintaining him and. his dependents. The effect of these provisions is that only the man who refuses to pay or to accept employment which has been found for him will suffer imprisonment. Whenever possible such imprisonment will be in a labour camp, in which the native can earn something for his work.