Yourself Or Mr. Nash; That Is The Question

Chronicle (Levin), 12 May 1949, Page 9

Yourself Or Mr. Nash; That Is The Question

r Press Association)

(Pei

AUCKLAND, May 11. Early and substantial reduetions in taxation and public expenditure were advocated in a remit carried at the Assoeiated Chambers of Commerce eonference. Another remit adopted suggested that one carried at the 1948 eonferen.ee favouring the appointment of a Royal Commission, be reaffirmed; A third urged the abolition of the j.u per cent surcharge on ineome tax. | Speaking in support of the first remit, Professor A. H. Tocker, of the , ' Canterbury Chamber, said last year taxation amounted to £122,000,000. About 1928 a well informed friend had said that further taxation was unthinkable. It amounted to £18,000,000 then. Taxation for the present year wai £126,000,000. That figure did not mean much but taxation took about 6s Sd in the £ o-f all ineome. ■ A reduction . in expenditure was asked for, he said. It was estimated that total Government expenditure amounted • to, £186,000,000, about half of the nett ineome of the country. Apparently tne people of New Zealand spent about haxi of their ineome .themselves. The other half was transferred to the Govemment and spent hy it. The question was whether the community got as mucn benqfit from the half of the ineome spent by the Government as from the other half spent by the people themselves irrespective of what party occupied the Treasury benches. The Palmerston North Chamber considered that the work of designing a scientifie taxation system was a job for experts. The chamber therefore sponsored a motion asking for the setting up of a Royal Commission so that the incidence of taxation and, in fact, the whole strueture of it, may be examined Lmpartially. The removal of price control from teadily available goods, was urged xn a remit whieh was also carried. The remit stated that as many classes oi goods weri now available or potentially available in quantities whieh enabled competitive price levels to operate, the eonference urged the Govern1 ment to remove«from price control immediately, all classes of goods in adequate supply. It also urged a policy of progressive de-control as other elassJl^of j|pods from time to time fell into thlPt feategory.