Deer farmers told to object to taxing

Press, 12 February 1986, Page 2

Deer farmers told to object to taxing

Deer farmers should refuse to negotiate with the Government on livestock taxation changes until the threat of retrospectivity in these changes is removed, says the Opposition member of Parliament for Selwyn, Miss Ruth Richardson.

The retrospectivity inherent in the proposal to tax unrealised profits was like a loaded pistol to the head of deer farmers, she told a Deer Farmers’ Association seminar in Christchurch yesterday. “We should declare the Douglas livestock taxation proposal unacceptable and then offer to work with the Government to find a tax regime that is realistic,” Miss Richardson said. “It is time for some oldfashioned anger from deer farmers.” The association has organised a series of seminars throughout New Zealand to discuss the taxation change proposals and the introduction of a

voluntary herd accreditation system for tuberculosis control. The first of these was held in Christchurch.

Miss Richardson’s address did bring forward many expressions of anger against the taxation reform proposals from the farmers who attended.

“We have to be tough,” said Mr Robert Johnston, of Oxford, "and if the Government says that aspects of the reform are not negotiable, we should say that is not acceptable.”

“It is high time rural people stood up to this Government.” Miss Richardson had earlier scorned the offer of the Minister of Finance, Mr Douglas, to be “flexible” on the terms of reference of the Brash Committee, which has been appointed to consider the implementation of the taxation changes. “In my length of time in politics I have learnt that ‘flexible’ is a political

weasel word and that Roger Douglas is not about to concede anything,” she said. The association’s president, Mr John Burrowes, said the association would have to convince Federated Farmers members that the reform proposal contained abhorrent principles.

The association had had advice that tax laws should be equitable, certain and never retrospective. The Douglas reform failed on all three counts and singled out the deer and goat industries for special punative measures, said Mr Burrowes.

“The tax on unrealised Income amounts to an assets or capital gains tax,” he said. Deer farmers were urged to submit their views to the Brash Committee and to send copies to the association, which would also prepare an over-all industry submission.