INCOME AND OTHER TAXES

Dominion, Volume 12, Issue 203, 22 May 1919, Page 5

INCOME AND OTHER TAXES

; Sir,—Your correspondent "Justice" has surely got a hoe in his bonnet! Fancy raising the "exemption" to .£ioo (for income ''taxation), while other conditions ... remain as at present! Tho tax should ' begin at least as low as ,£l5O. for every individual (male or female) with no dependants. Then let there be an exemp-. lion of, eay, iSISO more for.a wife,, and of at least .£IOO for. every child until its education is completed. Exemption should bo conceded at least up to 18. years, for children still acquiring edu- ' cation and not contributing to the main-. toh'ance '6f"the''home. Our educationists are, pretty generally, of opinion that education should be carried on until one's * eighteenth year. If so, it is surely roa-' i sonable to grant "exemption" of a certain amount for .every child up to that ago. The' present exemption for children is pure camouflage—it does not amount to 15s. of incomo tax per child per annum! Could anyone suggest anything more farcical in the way of camouflage? • Again, what could be more oruelly unjust than to tax "earned" incomes, which may cease to-morrow at prscisely tile saino rate as unearned income that gopj on for ever?. Why should the bachelor or spinster ■ with from .£l5O to ,£29!) per annum escape all taxation, while the married man with anything over .£3OO is taxed? Surely a bachelor, or. spinster, with ,£299 a year, and no dependants ,is much abler to contribute .£SO to our. taxation than a married man with i£Boo and a household of, say, seven to maintain? Our whole system of taxation, direct and indirect, is scandalously camoufkgy . and . unjust—a survival from the days when the privileged few legislated' for . -the exploited many. I ; suppose, however. that as long as we have the'greatest ' Tory in New Zealand as Minister of Finance the present system of taxational camouflage will continue.—l am, etc., REFORM.