FARMERS AND TARIFFS.

Waikato Times, Volume 103, Issue 17408, 22 May 1928, Page 9

FARMERS AND TARIFFS.

CAPT. COLBECK’S SPEECH. ATTRACTS MUCH ATTENTION. CHALLENGE TO GOVERNMENT. (Special to Times.) WELLINGTON, Monday. . Presumably Captain Colbeck was speaking without the authority of his fellow farmers when he told the recent Industrial Conference in its concluding session that if the rnen on the land were relieved of the burden of Customs taxation they would find employment for every idle hand in the Dominion. His assertion, however, has attracted a good deal of serious attention here; and, though there are few people who would join him in denouncing the protection of local indiisries as the “ curse of the country,” there are quite a number who think the whole system of taxation needs overhauling. As a matter of fact, Customs taxation to-day bears a considerably smaller proportion to the total taxation of the Dominion than it did before the war, the figures being 00.05 per cent, in _191314 and 51.71 per cent, in 1926-27, and there are politicians, including several Ministers of the Crown, who think Customs duties should be making a larger contribution to the State revenue than they arc doing at the present time. But a suggestion that the proportion of 1913-14 should be maintained would be, of course, quite untenable. How Monoy Raised.

The Customs and excise duties collected in 1913-14 amounted to £3,553,785, while in 1926-27 they reached £9,016,862. During the same period the receipts from income tax increased from £554,271 to £3,422,216; from land tax from £767,451 to £1,229,067 and from death duties from £613,751 to £1,690,374. The proportions of the contributions of these various sources of revenue to the total receipts show that in 1913-14 Customs and excise duties contributed 60.05 per cent, and in 1926-27 51.71 per cent; income tax, 9.37 per cent, and 19.62 per cent, respectively; land tax, 12.97 per cent, and 7.05 per cent, respectively; death duties, 10.37 per cent and 9.09 per cent, respectively, and other taxation 7.24 per cent, and 9.3 per cent, respectively. The volume of taxation mounted to its peak in 1920-21 when customs and excise reached £8,769,251, land tax, £1,688,979, income tax, £8,248,945. death duties, £1,106,925, totalisator taxes £4 97,961, and other taxes, £1,872,353, making a total of £22,184,414. £6,000,000 Reduction. It was this great advance of some £6,000,000 upon the figures of (he previous year that moved the New Zealand Taxpayers’ Federation lo an appeal which stirred the whole commercial and financial community into a protest against the growing volume of taxation. A deputation, seventy or eighty strong,

waited upon the Prime Minister, the late Right Hon. W. F. Massey, and ho frankly admitted that tie shared the concern of the members of the deputation and those they represented in regard to the load the taxpayers were bearing. With characteristic courage he set himself the task of lightening their burdens, sparing neither himself nor his colleagues in the process and faring badly at Lhe general election in die following year largely as a consequence of lhe vigorous enforcement of ids “ reduced taxation ” policy. Whether his reductions of taxation were wholly in the right direction and whether they were as comprehensive as they might have been still are debatable questions; but no doubt of the excellence of his intentions remains.

Position To-day. To-day, as already mentioned, many people are urging that the customs tariff should he so revised that it would produce as large a proportion of the total revenue as it did before the war, that is, 60.05 per cent, in place of 51.71 per cent. The effect of this would be to reduce tiie amounts required from the other sources of revenue and to place an increased burden upon the shoulders of the less fortunate members of the community whose modest incomes exempt them from income tax an'l land tax, although these burdens by way of increased charges and increased prices in many cases are passed on to them indirectly. This probably is the peril Captain Colbeck sensed ahead. At tiie conclusion of tiie war tiie proportion of revenue obtained from Customs and Excise was down to 29.18 per cent, of the total, due lo Hie large increase in the revenue obtained from incomes, bin duties were never reduced and since Hie war some of them have been increased. Mr Seddon’s “free breakfast table” has entirely disappeared.