Mining privileges

Press, 4 February 1986, Page 20

Mining privileges

Sir, —That most-coddled of corporate taxpayers, the metal miners, should be subject to the same stimulus of economic realism now faced by everybody else. Not only does their assessable income attract favourable deductions for capital expenditure, but the rate of tax payable is also only two-thirds that of other companies. Further concessions enable future expenditure to be claimed against present income and provide special allowances for investments in mining companies or loans to such companies in which shares are held. Are not important objectives of the tax system supposed to be equity between taxpayers, transparency and accountability? Government expenditure programmes should be subject to screening and audit. Is not profitability now supposed to be the benchmark for determining investment priorities and development alternatives? What special considerations justify this discrimination in favour of companies, often overseas-owned, which also benefit from royaltyfree access to a non-renewable

resource that belongs to the whole nation? — Yours, etc., ERIC BENNETT. Wellington, January 30, 1986.