The Wairarapa Daily. THURSDAY, APRIL 15, 1880.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume 2, Issue 439, 15 April 1880, Page 2

The Wairarapa Daily. THURSDAY, APRIL 15, 1880.

We haye received from Mr Chas. M. Crombie a neatly-printed pamphlet entitled "A Guide to the. Property Assessment Act," which gives a clear and concise explanation of many points which will be apt to puzzle settlers when they fill in their returns. If anything could make the Aot popular it would be this little treatise upon it, which almost tends to convince the reader that the levy is a sort of benevolence on the part of the State, which should be responded to with alacrity by the public, who, in many instances, will only enhance their own credit by being able to deolare that they pay a property tax. To show what a nice way Mr Crombie has of putting rather disagreeable things, we quote his introductory paragraph below, and will, as occasion affords, reprint for the benefit of our readers further extracts from his admirable publication, In the words of the author, the object of the Property Assessment Act, and of the Property Tax Act, is to compel every person in the Colony who has property, of a greater value than £SOO to contribute towards the necessities of the State in proportion to his possessions, This contribution has to be made in addition to taxes paid through the Custom House, by Stamp Puties, and iii other more or less indireot ways, -It is admitted that direot taxation is most unpalatable. If a man pays ,£2O a year through the Customs he does not notice it, and does not miss the money, but if he pays £lO a year to a collector or receiver, he is intensely conscious of the charge. Again, taxes through the Customs give no trouble to the payer, but either a Land or a Property Tax gives him a good deal. He has to value his own property, has to fill up forms, make declarations, possibly has to attend an Assessment Court, and finally has to take his money to some receiving officer. Even if a man knows how to do all this he finds it somewhat vexatiou). It must be especially »o : with any new scheme of taxation, and it is the hope of the writer that this pamphlet may tend to' render the assessment of their real and personal property more easily made by owners, may assist them in filling up the forms required, and may/explain those .portions of the Assessment Aot whioh.will, in the first instap'ce, affect the public; - in fact, may

enable the tax-payers to disburse their' money with the least trouble to themselves and-to the officers of the department. It is hot pleasant to : pay taxes, neither is It' an unmixed pleasure to assist fo- making others do, 50..; The' .administration of. a new Act is) to' a far greater extent than the working of an old system, a source of constant anxiety to those • whp are likely to be looked upon by the public as the _ only persons who derive any advantage from

it. Whatever, will make the work cast upon the tax-payers more easy for them to do readily and correctly, will lessen the labor and worry of the Property TaxufMals; therefore, if any consider-1 able proportion of the inhabitants of | Now Zealand, who are worth a clear i £SOO, can be induced to read these pages, both tax-payers and those who, in contradistinction, may be called taxcollectors, will, it may be hoped, find things go on more evenly and with less irritation than might otherwise have been the case, However, thepublicmusj; not forgot that the tax is on a principle entirely new to these Colonies, and much will have to be learnt—will have to. be ; evolved out of somewhere or something—before it will be possible to make the machinery work as smoothly as .the operations connected with the Income Tax do in the old country.