MOTOR TAXES

Wairarapa Age, 10 November 1927, Page 5

MOTOR TAXES

SIR J. WARD’S PROTEST. PREMIER IN REPLY. MAKING ROAD USERS PAY. (By Telegraph.—“ The Age” Special.) WELLINGTON, November 9. One of the main features of the second reading debate on the Motor Spirit Taxation Bill was Sir Joseph Ward’s criticism of heavy motor taxation. This was promptlyanswered by the Prime Minister. Sir Joseph Ward endeavoured to show that motorists were being compelled to suffer a tremendous imposition. There were approximately 150,000 people interested in the ownership of motor vehicles in New Zealand, he said, and those people were being asked to pay another £750,000 in taxation by way of the duty of 4d. a gallon on petrol. Last- year 45,000,000 gallons of petrol were imported, and at 4d. a gallon one got £750,000. If one capitalised that sum at 5 per cent., year after year, one found it was the equivalent of £15,000,000. He would show what the motorists had to pay. First, there was the tyre tax, which amounted to £lBO,OOO. Next, there were license fees, which totalled £350,000, and thirdly, the petrol tax, totalling £750,000. Then the Government had put £400,000 on to motor bodies by way of duty last year. Thus one found that the motorist was paying £1,608,000 annually. In the last two years, motorists had paid £2,700,000. The Government was forcing this payment in order to save landowners and public bodies from paying their proportion of loading costs. MILLIONS IN ROADS. The Prime Minister stated that there were 9400 miles of roads on which some £15,000,000 had been expended by way of capital expenditure, and it was for the country to see that those roads were maintained. Interest on the £15,000,000 amounted to £750,000. Mr. Coates quoted a list of figures showing that after the motorist had provided part of the money necessary, there .was still a deficiency of £895,000 which could only be found by the local bodies. Then, there were some 30,000 miles of roads to be provided for, and those roads had cost the local bodies and the Government about £20,000,000. Generally speaking, the Public Works Department had had goocl valuator the money spent. When we came to say that we could maintain those roads at their present standard by simply dropping our hands into some imaginary well full of sovereigns, we had to ask if the money was there. Of course it was not there. Mr. Coates said that after all, the petrol tax was only on the principle of the toll tax. If a man used the road, he paid and if he did not use the road he didn’t pay. Sir Joseph: “Oh, have we got to go back into the Ark again and establish tolls?” A GOOD PRINCIPLE. Mr. Coates said he thought the principle that the user should pay was a good one. What he wanted to avoid was piling up costs against the primary producer. Those costs could so pile up that the primary producer would be no longer able to pay rating costs. Mr. V. H. Potter (Roskill): “Never mind the secondary producer!” Mr, Coates: “He is different. He either goes on or closes up, and he does not- have property. The country’s first consideration must be for the great staple industry, and to see that costs are not passed on.”