INCOME TAX ABOLITION.

Waipawa Mail, Volume 3, Issue 211, 18 September 1880, Page 2

INCOME TAX ABOLITION.

An article in the Contemporary Review, by Mr Lonsdale Bradley, on, the question, ‘‘ How the income tax can bo abolished,” suggests a method of collecting the national revenue, or a large portion of it, by means of an extension of the system of stamps. The gist of the suggestion may be gathered from the following sentences : —'“ If this system of collecting the ‘nimble penny’ wore once adopted, we believe that there would be as great a reluctance to return to special government agents in the collection of revenues as there is now to go back to the times prior to the introduction of the penny postage stamp. What retail dealer would think it any hardship if, when he sold a customer a pound’s worth of goods, he was required to place a penny stamp on the bill of particulars ; or a tailor if having sold a sit it of clothes for five pounds, the law required him to attaoh a stamp to the bill of the value of threepence ; or a clerk if, on receiving his weekly wages of two pounds, he was asked to place a stampt worth twopence on the receipt ? If a solicitor's bill of £25. required a 2s 6d stamp, or if a wholesale dealer having sold £IOO of goods had to attach a one-shilling stamp, or if a speculator on selling £IOOO ot stock to authenticate the contract must use a shilling stamp, where would be tho grievance? Is there a sin o individual who would not willin.t) conform to such a system ? Would the tax in any one instance be looked upon as prohibitive, or even bttni ei n. some? Again we think not. iue amount of the tax would hardly .be an appreciable item in the price of goodie.and tiio taxes would be paid by In riband little : but, notwithstanding, in reality, a very largo revenue would bo collected by many hundred thousand of stamps Citing destroyed deny.