DOUBLE TAXATION

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 90, Issue 85, 12 April 1946, Page 5

DOUBLE TAXATION

BRITISH FIRM UNABLE TO START IN AUSTRALIA Reed. 7.30 p.m. Sydney, April 11. The erection of a £5,000,000 factory at Tomago, Newcastle, has been postponed indefinitely by Courtaulds Limited, the world’s biggest textile manufacturers, owing to double taxation. Addressing a meeting of shareholders in London ybsterday, the company chairman, Mr. S. A. Courtauld, said the present rates of English and Australian taxation, put together, made it impossible to manufacture in Australia on a competitive basis. “We have a site for a rayon yarn and staple fibre factory in Australia, but to what extent and how soon we can start depends very largely on the removal of double taxation,’’ he added. Many English firms planning to expand in Australia will be held up by the necessity of paying both the English and Australian taxes, and the potential capital loss to Australia Is tens of millions. It is believed that negotiations for the revising of double taxation are proceeding between Britain and Australia. Whrn the Prime Minister, Mr. Chifiev, reaches London he and the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Dr. Hugh Dalton. will confer on the question.

The proposed factory will cover 1700 acres and employ 5000 n«nnl<*. Courtauld’s were having trouble with local authorities about water rates when the Lord Nuffield and the Victoria Park incident occurred here recently, and he went so far as to investigate an alternative site in South Australia, but the matter was satisfactorily arranged.