A POPULAR TAX

Dominion, Volume 8, Issue 2547, 23 August 1915, Page 4

A POPULAR TAX

■ . We wonder whether the National Ministry in its struggle with the problem of placing the war taxation on the right shoulders has thought' of a special tax on single men. The single man who is physically fit and who-is at all concerned for the fate of his country will be exempted, for of course he will be at the front or on the roll of those awaiting the opportunity to go. The fighting man should escape this tax. It is the single man who'is unable to go and the single man who will not go save under compulsion who would have to pay such a tax as we suggfs fc " And why should not they pay it 1 The average man who is unable to go, who is -too old .br who cannot pass the medical - tests, would ' most cases take pride in paying something extra towards the cost of the struggle in which he is unable to take a direct personal share. He would not begrudge such a payment so long as it was made quite clear that it was for the purposes of the w . a !;7~ ln ac k' P a y the wage ot tho men who are fighting his battles abroad. As to the other class of single men, the physically fit who will not volunteer for service, the shirkers, they deserve no consideration whatever. They ma.y even begrudge the payment of a little extra towards tho dcfence of their country, but kiey will meet with small sympathy anywhere. At the present time the income tax exemption extends to incomes up to £300 a year. J. He Government might with advantage lor the purpose of war revenue, descend still lower in the scale in the case of single men, and impose a tax of sixpence in the pound on all incomes from £125 to £300, adding a corresponding increase to the existing rato of taxaticn on all such incomes over £300. This would mean that a single man having an income of £125 a year would pay an annual war tax thereon of £3 2s. 6d. This would not entail any very great sac: rince on his part, lie being a single man and in most cases haviifg only •himself to care for, but spread'over the whole of the single men remaining in the country would mean a fairly substantial sum for the Treasury. ■ Indeed, one shilling in the £ would not be unreasonable,. If ever there was a time when a tax on bachelors—that is to say, single men oyer 21 years of agewas justified, it. is now. Here is an opportunity for Sir Joseph Ward to improve that rare thing—a- popular tax.