"TAX ON COLLEGES”

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 83, Issue 56, 8 March 1939, Page 9

"TAX ON COLLEGES”

DEMAND BY’ ENGLISH FARMERS. CLAIM THAT IMMUNITY IS UNFAIR. LONDON, Feb. 4. Should Oxford and Cambridge colleges pay income tax and estate duties on the land they own? Claiming that the immunity from taxation enjoyed by the colleges gives them unfair advantages, English farmers are calling for an end to be put to the privileges. Their “Tax the College” campaign is expected to reach Parliament next session, when questions are to be asked. The colleges are among the largest land owners in Britain. Latest figures showed that Oxford owned 179,000 acres in 47 counties, and Cambridge 115,000 acres in 39 counties. They are constantly selling at a large profit land in deveolping areas. At the same time they are buying equal portions of land elsewhere and any taxpaying farmer or other private person who wants the same land is at an obvious disadvantage in bidding against them. The colleges are exempted from taxation because the Government regard them as charities. As corporate bodies which never dies, they pay no estate duties. The ordinary owner-farmer or landowner may have to pay up to 50 per cent, death duties-

Farmers and landowners make two suggestions for the sweeping away of these privileges:— (i) That the estates income of colleges should be subject to the same income tax as an ordinary taxpayer’s estate;

(ii) That they should be subject to a jubilee tax every 50 years—a rough equivalent of death duties.