LAND VALUES LEAGUE

Dominion, Volume 8, Issue 2559, 6 September 1915, Page 8

LAND VALUES LEAGUE

—- —♦- . MANIFESTO ON THE BUDGET. The New Zealand Land Values League lias issued a lengthy manifesto on the taxation, proposals in the Budget. The dominant featracs.of tho Budget, 6ays the manifesto, are the comparative insignificance of tjio land value taxation, the discrimination between -country land and town, land, and-the smallness of the amount which the wealthy are to be called upon to provide. The Budget, it is added, places the greatest sliaro of the burden on tho mass of the people 'who are already over-taxed, under-paid, and cut off from their rightful opportunity of access to the land of-, their country. Tho manifesto complains that tho land, valuetax is to be increased-merely by the paltry sum of JJGS.OOO per annum, or a little more than .£lO for each payer of graduated land tax, while the industry and trade of the people are to, be saddled with £285,000 additional Customs taxation, including 4d. per gallon on such a common Accessary as kerosene; increased railway charges, ,£300,000; increased' postal and telegr&pluc charges, ,£38(1,000. ■The proposed increase of tho income tax is disapproved on the following grounds:—{i) The amount to be raised thereby could be obtained much more cheaply, easily, and equitably by a. slight increase of the land tax; (ii) the tax readily lends itself to evasion; (iii) it is of necessity inquisitorial, irritating, and expensive in collection; and (iv) 'in so far as it constitutes a tax on earnings it is unjust and indefensible, while unearned income can lie reached'much more effectively by the land tax. In contrast to tho taxes forecasted in tho Budget, the manifesto asks the publicto consider how much more simple, equitable, and comprehensible are those principles of taxation. for which the league stands. The unimproved value of the land of this country has now reached .£230,000,000. A uniform tax of 2d. in. the J! on that fund would yield exactly the amount of vovemie Tequired, without adding to the cost of collection, or of OTverniuent. The manifesto concludes:—"We trust that the people's representatives in Parliament will make a serious effort to Rave tho Budget proposals Tecnst with a view not merely to relieving the industry of the community from unfair burdens, "but for tho purpose of so adjusting the taxation of the country that it can bo more accurately estimated and rendered more i secure from a shrinkage that would sori- . ously embarrass tho country financially and check that prosperity which ever-, a devastating war has eo far happily been. 'unable to impair."