INCOME AND SOCIAL SECURITY TAXATION LAWS NEED OVERHAUL

Wanganui Chronicle, 27 February 1947, Page 4

INCOME AND SOCIAL SECURITY TAXATION LAWS NEED OVERHAUL

(P.A.) Napier, Feb. 26 Commenting that the Income and Social Security taxation laws were overdue for complete review. Mr. C. H. Perkins, in his presidential address at the annual meeting of the New Zealand Society of Accountants, advocated that a committee or commission should be set up to inquire into the whole position. Mr. Perkins declared the present impost on unearned income, particularly when it fell on widows and retired people with small incomes, was a distinctly inequitable method of taxation. Discussing the Dominion’s trade with overseas countries, Mr. Perkins said: “We canont expect that the prewar system of trade will be fully restored in view of the profound changes associated with the war years. No country is more dependent on world trade than New Zealand, so we have a lot to gain from possible economic progress in different parts of the world. There are regions where such developments taking place will be to our advantage if we open up trade with them.”

Mr. Perkins added the Dominion should not too readily assume that in future its exports really were assured, in view of Britain’s difficult economic situation, and in view also of the strongly emerging competition of substitutes for wool and butter.