CORRESPONDENTS' VIEWS

Auckland Star, Volume LXXIII, Issue 176, 28 July 1942, Page 4

CORRESPONDENTS' VIEWS

COLLECTING INCOME TAX

(To The Editor)

I am frankly disappointed with Air 4.lgie's answer to m\ letter on this subject. In a public discussion on an important public question the object should be to get at the truth, which I endeavoured to do, and not merely to score points. Unfortunately Mr. Algie omitted, quite innocently I am sffie, to mention that I was really discussing his friend the immaculate defaulting taxpayer, under my own description of him, and so Mr. Algie may have given the impression that I was alleging hit the words "disloyal shirker* aDoeared in the Act. This negligible oversight was followed immediately bv a more serious one. It is a misquotation of his own quotation just one line above. "Anyone," we are solemnly assured, "can see that the phrase 'any taxpayer' is far wider than the phrase 'disloyal shirker and the Act is therefore more far-reach-ing in its scope than Mr. Haddow would have us believe." Of course "anyone can see," etc. But in the line above in his letter Mr. Algie has just frankly told us that the Act says not merely "any taxpayer" but "any taxpayer who has made default " Why leave out the most important two-thirds of the sentence? Following the last words I have cited from Mr. Algie's letter come these: "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." If this does not mean that the facts are false it is irrelevan, because the truth of them is the sole point in discussion, and, as jour readers will have observed, Mr. Algie does not deal in irrelevancies. As the facts are thus challenged, I am obliged to repeat them. They are:—(l) The man affected had already collected the income on which he was taxed; (2) he had made a formal return of it; (3) he had had a formal assessment of his debt; (4) he had been invited to object to his assessment; (5) he had been given a month in which to object; (6) he had the right to appeal to a Court if he was not satisfied; (7) he had been given from eight to fourteen months from the receipt of the income in which to pay; (8) he had, finally, shirked payment. It may be brutal to ask Mr. Algie to say where these statements are false, but I must da so. J. G. HADDOW.