POLITICAL TOPICS.

Thames Star, Volume LVII, Issue 15679, 4 October 1922, Page 5

POLITICAL TOPICS.

THE TAXATION BILL.

ITS SECOND READING.

(From Our Correspondent.) WELLINGTON, Oct. 2. It is not expected that the Land and Income Tax Bill will encounter any very formidable opposition when it comes up for its second reading in the House of Representatives this week. The members of the Labour' • Party probably will reiterate the criticism", they offered on the introduction of the bill, and the Liberals, as in duty bound, doubtless will deplore again that better counsels did not prevail at the Treasury; but, to Mr Massey’s great good luck, there is no one on the Opposition side of the House in these days that can speak .with facility and authority on State finances. From the public point of view.it is extremely unfortunate that Parliament should have lost at one fell swoop, as it were, three such financial experts as Sir Joseph Ward, Sir James Allen and the Hon. Arthur \ Myers, and that in this time of unparalled difficulty Sir Francis Bell ‘should not be at the elbow-of the Prime Minister. It is admitted on all sides, even by the people who are v. pinning their faith to ■Mr Massey, that no previous House has been so poorly equipped to deal with great financial problems as is ,the present one. , - ■ ' BUSINESS MAN’S VIEW. . Though quite a number of eommer- s \ cial bddies and farmers’ organisations have expressed approval and appreciation'of the Taxation Bill as an earnest desire of the Government to lighten the enormous burdens the ' business community and the producers are bearing at the present time,, very-few of them regard the present proposals as in any way commensurate with the needs of the. situation. A business man, with big interests all over the Dominion, discussing the position to-day said it was just a question how long companies' and firms could hol4 on under the present\ . -crushing load of taxation. 'Many, of them were already hopelessly involved. They struggled along, buoyed up by their own optimism tind the optimism of the Prime Minister, till they. had reached a point at which liquidation offered the only, escape from their accumulated troubles. Strong- ■ er firms that 'had been carrying on numbers of farmers, under conditions that were advantageous to both v. sides, noHv were compelled to close i accounts that bAd been running for years simply because they could not get the accommodation they required themselves to continue this class of business. To shve themselves they had to push the farmers to the wall. COMPANY TAXATION. The manager of a large limited liability company, that for half a century and more has rendered signal service to the producing interests of the country, had a similar story to tell. A reduction of the maximum in* come tax from ®s 9d in the pound to 7s 4d, he said, was going to -help the producers and the workers to some extent, but it was‘going to be of very little assistance to the companies or to their small shareholders who were dragged under the operation of the maximum tax directly they invested a ten pound note in shares. He did not wish to belittle Mr Massey’s financial 1 ability, which presumably . was the best to be found in Parliament; but he could not help thinking that if the Prime Minister had made an 'unbiassed study of the systems of company taxation followed by other countries he would have seen his way • to avoid gravely embarrassing many ofi the most useful business institutions in the Dominion. The published statements in regard to the position, of the co-operative trading .con cernp showed what 'was happening t all over the country and a concession i'M of Is 6d in the pound on the-maxi-mum income tax was not going to save the situation. THE BANKERS. The bankers, who have been blamed for many of the evils arising front excessive taxation, carefully eschew politics. They are wedded to their business.and Governments come and go without occasioning them any per-, sonal emotion. But at the present time they are very gravely perturbed by the manner in which the der mands of the State are affecting thejr own business and the businesses of their clients. One of them, referring this morning to the popular idea tha,t the banks were coining money out of the embarrassments of the Government and the public, said that as a matter of fact the State taxation the banks paid in New Zealand was five or six times higher than the taxation they paid in the other countries in which they did business, chiefly Australia and England. More than this, the Dominion Government in its necessities, was employing many devices to divert capital, from the banks and so lessening their ability to help business men and producers who in these times stood sadly in need / o£ assistance. In these circumstances to blame the banks for .what was happening appeared to be flagrantly ungenerous.