INEQUITABLE TAXATION

Waipukurau Press, Volume XXVIII, Issue 122, 18 May 1932, Page 3

INEQUITABLE TAXATION

(To the Editor).

Sir, —I was interested in ) your leading articles re the above, but I cannot follow your arguments. You quote a correspondent in a Wairarapa. journal as putting the position clearly. He says, inter alia, that the man on £4 10/- wages, paid only 3d in the pound £5 ss, and that the business man has to pas 1/- in the pound for the same year and therefore pays £ll 14s. Now, if you take the matter further, you will find that the man on wages paid cash each week, which at the end of February 1933 amounts to £l5 19s, against £ll 14s paid by the business man. In reality they have both paid the same, because the business man paid 3d in the £ for the previous year’s income. Far from this method operating against the person paying tax on other than salary or wages it favours him in two or three ways. In the first' place the man on a weekly wage drawing an uneven number of 1/B’s, pays Id overtax every pay day: approximately 4/4 per annum. The other man has what works out to approximately six months grace to pay his tax.—l am, etc., INQUIRER.. [Note: “Inquirer” overlooks the fact that the small business man referred to is called upon to pay 1/in the £ for his past year’s income, whereas those on a wage or salary basis paid 3d in the £. For the current year it is expected that eventually each will be taxed on a basis of rate equality—but the Government may decide to levy the business man retrospectively higher! It is to be hoped that it will not be again. 300 per cent, up!—Editor.]