The Dominion WEDNESDAY, APRIL 17, 1918. OUR FINANCES

Dominion, Volume 11, Issue 178, 17 April 1918, Page 4

The Dominion WEDNESDAY, APRIL 17, 1918. OUR FINANCES

A FOUK-AND-A-QUARTER-MILMON SIU , - plus of revenue over expenditure as the result of the country's financial operations for the past year speaks for itself. This, of course, does not cover War expenditure or Public AVorks expenditure, but it does include the , annual interest and sinking fund charges on all borrowed money whatever purpose the money may have been used for. The statement of the year's finance placed before Parliament by the Minister of Finance on Monday evening was not complete, for full figures are not yet available, but the final returns are more likely to accentuate tho very satisfactory position disclosed 'than to detract therefrom. The increase in revenue for tho year of £1,633,371 is due to the increased land and income taxes —that is to say, to a direct taxation or conscription of the wealth of people of moderate and large incomes. Those with small incomes contributed nothing directly to this extra revenue. The National Government has consistently cnclcavour.ed to place the main financial burden of war costs on tho shoulders of tho well-to-do and tho wealthy, and the figures given by Sin Joseph Ward in his statement to Parliament show how well it has succeeded in this direction. Tho increase in the income tax receipts from £4,262,126 to £5,610,719, though large, is rather less than we had expocted it to be, and it is possible- that tho full revenue from this source was not collected within tho financial year. _ The Department has got behind in its work owing to shortage of experienced officers, and it is possible that when the full figures arc available an even larger increase than that stated by the_ Finance Minister in his interim report may lie shown. To better realise the extent to which the incidence of taxation lias been revised under the stress of war conditions, it is necessary to compare the returns from the different sources of taxatiion in pre-war times with those of to-day. Tho chief items arc set out in the following table: 1914-15 1111748. TncrciißC. J* n n Customs duties 3,2!H,943 3.361,380 66,437 Land tax 709,641 1,384,191 fi84j553 Income tax ... 510,318 5,610,71(1 5,070,401 It will be seen that whereas Customs duties, or indirect taxation , , yielded tho largest share of the revenue from taxation in pre-war days, the direct taxation of land and incomes to-day overshadows this source of revenue. Customs duties now yield only sonic £66,000 more than they did in 1914-15, while land taxation yields over half a. million more then it did and in-

conu: taxation over livu millions mure. The tutai iiinounti of income tax collected last year was nearly eleven times as much as was collected in IOM-ln. In other words, the burden has been plaeed on tlic shoulders of those best able to bear it, though, us we have from time to time- demonstrated, that burden is inequitably distributed whore the. shareholders of joint stock companies are concerned. In the matter of expenditure the increase has been less marked, the addition for the past year being a little over a quarter of a million. This was unavoidable, being mainly due to the mounting , up of interest and sinking fund charges due to war and other loans. During the past three years the surplus revenue over expenditure has totalled ten and three-quarter millions; in 1916 the surplus was a little over two millions; in 1917 it was over four and a quarter millions, and it is about the same this year. The greater part of this surplus revenue has been invested in Imperial Government securities, and is held as a reserve in London against future emergencies. While the policy of investing in Imperial Government securities has much to commend it, there is another side to the matter, and it seems desirable that a. limit should lie fixed to this form of investment of our surplus funds.