CORRESPONDENTS' VIEWS

Auckland Star, Volume LXXIII, Issue 173, 24 July 1942, Page 4

CORRESPONDENTS' VIEWS

COLLECTING INCOME TAX (To The Editor) After reading Mr. J. G. Haddow's spirited defence of the Commissioner of Taxes, I remain quite certain that the action of the Chamber of Commerce in making a vigorous protest was the correct course to pursue. Mr. Haddow argues that the extraordinary power given to the commissioner is fair, just and proper. I feel that it is only one more step down the slippery path into departmental despotism. Mr. Haddow is very well qualified to make out the strongest case that could be presented on the commissioner's behalf, and, bearing this in mind, I am sorry we are so far apart. Mr. Haddow seeks to justify his opinion by pointing out that our Act is only an instalment of what is contained in a corresponding English Act. I see no particular force in such an argument, and must confess that I cannot describe a thing as good or bad simply because it has its counterpart in England. I am reminded, too, of the fact that a Lord Chief Justice of England found it necessary, on a recent occasion, to summarise his experience of the English tendency towards official tyranny in a book entitled "The New Despotism." If the Lord Chief Justice had been familiar with conditions in New Zealand he would have been in a position to declare that, as regards bureaucratic autocracy, we had left England far behind. Mr. Haddow makes a statement to the effect that "the facti behind all the shouting are simple." As the first of his "facts" he declares that "only the disloyal shirker is affected" by the new provision; but Section 7 of the Finance Act, 1942, expresses the matter quite differently. Mr. paddow says, as fact No. 1, that this new provision applies only to "disloyal shirkers," but the Act says that it applies to "any taxpayer who has made default." Anyone can see that the phrase "any taxpayer" is far wider than the phrase "disloyal shirker," and the Act is therefore more far-reaching in its scope than Mr. Haddow would have us believe. If this is the first of Mr. Haddow's "simple facts," the rest can be left to wither away speedily from a mere lack of vitality. R. M. ALGIE.