TAXATION.

Wanganui Herald, Volume LIII, Issue 160712, 27 July 1920, Page 4

TAXATION.

The Prime Minister is evidently more anxious to avoid troubles than to remove the burdens which press heavily on those unable to bear them. For some considerable time jt has been urged that the incidence of taxation required revision, and at last election Mr Massey was quite emphatic on the point. But, as indicated weeks ago, the Government has no intention of undertaking such a perilous task, and the excuse Mr Massey gives is that the country cannot do with less revenue than is at present raised, and if taxation were taken off one thing it must be placed on another. He has deliberately evaded the question, which is not one of reducing the sources of revenue but of imposing taxation where it will cause least hardship. The idea is to remove the inequitable conditions against which no protest was made during the war, but which cannot under the present circumstances be justified by any reasonable argument. The Southland News suggests that the Government will not tackle the awkward question, for the reason that it would have to put the extra taxation on the other fellow who happens to be a particular friend, and proceeds to say: What does such a Government care for equity or for anything else but those considerations which ensure a continuance of power? The income tax brought to the revenue of the country in the year recently ended £6,369,765, Customs £4,830,324, and Railways £5,766,015 (an increase of £BOO,OOO on the previous twelve months) . Two-thirds of the entire revenue is gained from these sources, which materially affect the general public and the small salary owney. On the other hand the land tax yielded by estates aggregating an unimproved value of 270 million pounds was £1.557,903, or little more than onehalf per cent., while nearly thirteen million pounds’ worth of estates certified for death duties yielded £926,835, or less than 7 per cent. All kinds of objections are made to increasing the. amount of taxation on the wealthy classes, the most general being that it imperils the life of the goose that lays the golden eggs. It is no wonder we have manifest anomalies in the incidence of taxation if such arguments are to hold. The Year Book for 19.19 contains a statement to the effect that the graduated land tax has hardened up in late years “to prevent aggregation of land and to compel the cutting up of large estates.” Nearly fifteen -million acres are held in areas of ever ten thousand acres in this country, and what the Government calls compulsion imposes a maximum of sevenpence in the pound on owners, at a valuation which virtually reduces the amount paid by at least onehalf. It is possible to refer to only a few of the anomalies and hardships the Government refuses to remove. But under the system ten small shareholders of companies pay at the same rate as one large one, and the man with eight or ten children can obtain exemption only on account of four, though his financial responsibilities are correspondingly greater, and though in a country that requires population one might reasonably expect encouragement to produce large families. There is no necessity why the people who have trouble to’ make ends meet—the people who bore their severe war sacrifices with resignation—should be asked to pay increasing amounts towards the State revenue. The idea should be to avoid as far as possible imposing hardship, and to this end when money is wanted it should be sought where it exists in such amounts that the proportions demanded for the various levies are scarcely missed.