HALF INCOME OF NEW ZEALANDERS GOES ON TAXATION

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 14, Issue 21, 5 August 1949, Page 6

HALF INCOME OF NEW ZEALANDERS GOES ON TAXATION

Whether New Zealanders realise it or not it is a fact that at present they spend about half their incomes themselves, while the other half, transferred to the Government through taxes, other revenue, and loans, is spent for them by the State. This point is made in the . “Accountants’ Journal,” in pressing for a revision of. taxation laws. The Land and Income Tax Act, 1823 aided by some 30 amendments, hat served for more than a quarter century, says the journal. “Faced with a similar position, the Canadiar Government introduced a new Income Tax Act last year, and in Britain Sir Stafford Cripps has promised a full investigation into the complex income tax structure. On the grounds alone of passage , of time and much amendment, a revision is fully justified. “The New Zealand Act was passed when the maximum rate of Income tax was 5s 10id in £1 and the total income tax (1922/23) was £3 800,000. In . 1948/49 the Government received £76,400,000 from taxes on income—a twenty-fold increase in 26 years. “During and since the recent war, taxation in most British countries mr; in the U.S.A. has been much higl er than was thought possible only a few years ago. Although overseas tax rates have been substantially reduced since 1945, especially in Canada, they are still high by pre-war standards. The full effects of such high taxation are not yet known, because it has been in force for only a few years. There is room for much research into the economic effects of high taxation, ai into the much-changed concept of a nation’s taxable capacity.”