UNEMPLOYMENT TAXES

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 74, Issue 184, 6 August 1931, Page 7

UNEMPLOYMENT TAXES

CHARGE ON PARMERS’ INCOME BASIS NOT YET REACHED WELLINGTON, Aug. 5. Considerable doubt exists in agricultural communities as to # the basis on which tfte emergency unemployment •barge of threepence in the pound will be collected on income of farmers. The Unemployr.ent Board has not yet intimated what the method of assessment will be. The Minister of Labour, Hon. S. G. Smith, has stated that the method of assessment has not been decided, but that regulations will shortly be issued setting out the position. The clause in the Unemployment Amendment Act defining ”income” liable to the emergency unemployment, charge was apparently intended to bring all personal income within its scope and does so by reference to the definitions of income in the Land and Income Tax Act, 1923, and in sub-sec-tion 2 of section 4 of the Land and Income Tax Act, ’930. Section 4 of the 1930 Act contains the definition of income derived from the use or occupation of land made subject to ordinary income tax and does so under four headings, in each cas< the term “profit or gains” being used to limit the basis of taxation. Sub-section 2 of that clause merely provides for the exemption from ordinary tax of income from land outside the scope of the first subsection. The reference to it in the Unemployment Act appears to impose the emergency tax upon the whole of the “income derived by any person from his direct use or occupation of any land.’’ as thqrc is no provision for the deduction of any expenses from the income.