NOTES AND COMMENTS

Dominion, Volume 37, Issue 7, 4 October 1943, Page 4

NOTES AND COMMENTS

The announcement that the American Secretary of State, Mr. Cordell Hull, may journey to Moscoav to take part in a conference of Allied foreign Ministers adds materially to the importance of the meeting. Mr. Hu i recently recovered from an illness and the trip to the Soviet capital would be a long and tiring one, but evidently the conference is regarded as being of exceptional importance. The British Foreign Minister, Mr. Eden, has expressed his opinion with the utmost candour. He has stressed the need for the Governments of the' United Nations to exchange views without reservations of any kind, and no little responsibility will rest upon the British representative because it will be his duty to interpret the respective points of view of his colleagues for their mutual benefit. - Britain and Russia are signatories to a treaty that is to last well into the post-war years, and although that should provide a stabilizing factor in what is expected o be a time of uncertainty, it would have much greater value if a definite agreement on major points of international policy could be reached by the three leading members of the United Nations. Many people, will see-in tins tripartite conference a preliminary step to a meeting of the heads of the three Governments, and hope that it will be a milestone on the road to further co-operation not onl-y during the progress of the war but also in the days that follow, for in their unity of policy and purpose would lie the best possible assurance of strength and stability. » * * ”

Approval of the principle that income tax should he paid while the taxpayer was in receipt of income, and not comiTclled to pay a levy bused on that of the previous year has been generally expressed in Britain, and if a practical scheme has been devised then it is. almost certain to be adopted. According to a recent message from London the authorities have a plan that,-in the first stage, will apply solely to taxpayers in receipt of a weekly wage, and they number 7,500,000. At the present time they pay income tax by a series of instalments spread over several months, but the tax is computed on the earnings in the preceding year. The task has been to find a suitable method of changing that; so that the tax can be applied to current earnings. Apparently the scheme proposed will “forgive the sums due on last year’s income on a sliding scale, graduated m. accordance with what lhe taxpayer is at present earning. It will be an experiment, and if successful may be applied to all income. There is one obvious advantage in deducting taxes frAin current earnings, namely, the automatic drop in the tax demand when, and if, these earnings fall. In all probability they will fall in the first post-war year, and it would constitute a hardship to ask wage-earners to pay, out of their reduced income, taxation assessed on wartime rates of pay. The reported plan for making the final adjustments each year seems to follow that alrcat j in operation in Canada. The matter is one which should have attention here for ‘post-war adjustments will present serious problems to many people in the Dominion. If the tax demand, instead of lagging a year behind, wore adjusted in accordance with income fluctuations, the position would be eased considerably.

In his address inaugurating this year’s health stamps campaign, the Governor-General, Sir Cyril Newall, has given the public a timely reminder of the fact that in the national health camps movement is memorialized the esteem and affection held in the hearts of the New Zealand people for the late King George the Fifth. This feeling was shown by the fund of some £89,000, raised by public subscription, and subsidized pound for pound 'by the Government, for the provision of permanent health camps for children, a most appropriate tribute to the fine humanitarian qualities of bis late Majesty. These contributions by the public through the sale of health stamps constitute in effect an annual salute to his memory, as well as a helpful addition to the resources for currying on the good work.