INCOME TAX

Waipukurau Press, Volume XXVIII, Issue 128, 25 May 1932, Page 8

INCOME TAX

RELIEF OF UNEMPLOYMENT BOARD’S EXPLANATION Wide-spread inquiries as to the operation of the * Unemployment Amendment Act of last session arc being m.acV. by persons who aro • still confused as to the provisions attaching to the increased taxation and the exemptions allowable. Most uncertainty exists over the taxation on incomes other than salar yancl wages, and in order to clarify the position the Unemployment Board has drawn, up the following explanatory statement: —

The principal changes that have been effected in the law relating to unemployment taxation by the 1932 Amendment Act arc:—

(1) An increase in the rate of the emergency unemployment charge from

threepence to one shilling in the pound. (2) The extension of the tax for an indefinite period instead of confining it to one year as under the 1931 Amendment Act.

(3) Providing that, in the ease of women, all income other than salary or wages in excess of £2O per annum is liable for the charge. Under the Unemployment Amendment Act, 1931, one year’s taxation was levied (both on salaries and wages and on other income) at the rate of one penny for each amount of six shillings and eight pence. At the time of passing of the Unemployment Amendment Act, 1932, (April 30), persons who derived, income other than salaries or wages during the year ended March 31, 1931, had paid (or should have paid) the equivalent of eight months’ taxation, that is, on one-third of such income on November 1, 1931, and on another third on February 1, 1932.

The third instalment under the .1931 Act (which was required to be computed on one-third of the income for the year ended March 31, 1932, and would have been payable on May 1, 1932) was cancelled, by the 1932 Act and for it was substituted a charge on the whole of the income for that year, at the rate of one penny for each amount of one shilling and eight pence, payable in four equal instalments on the first day of the moths of May, August, and November, ’1932, and February, 1933, and a similar charge for subsequent years. The charge on salaries and wages was also incrcsed to the rate mentioned as from May 1, 1932. It should be clearly understood that although the third instalment of the ■charge on income other than salary or wag’os imposed T>v flic 1931 Act 7 is cancelled as above, the first and second instalments are not affected, and if they have not already been paid they are now pyable, plus 10 per cent, penalty and, defaulters are liable to a further penalty on prosecution and. conviction.

Under the 1931 Act women were liable for the charge on income other than salary or wages if their total income (inclusive of salary or wages) was £250 or more per annum; under the 1932 Act, however, women have, so far as income other than salary or wages is concerned, a universal exemption of £2O per annum. All “other income” in excess of that amount derived by women is taxable rogardles of whether

or not salary or wages is also received.