The Daily Telegraph TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 22, 1881.

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 3014, 22 February 1881, Page 2

The Daily Telegraph TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 22, 1881.

It seems to be now an accepted fact that the property tax has failed to produce anything like what was expected of it. When the House agreed to the tax it was shown that the new imposition was a fairer burden than the land tax, and would produce nearly fourtimes as much. The need* of the country, it was asserted, demanded that the revenue should be increased by come £300,000. The Treasurer, therefore, proposed that the land tax, which produced £100,000, should be abolished, and a property tax imposed which would produce £470,000. It has cost somewhere about £40,000 to put the Property Tax Act into operation, and the tax, instead of adding to the revenue £470,000, has barely yielded £270,000. The question now arises, says the Wanganui Herald, is a tax, at once so inquisitorinl, so unequal in its operations, so tender to the speculators and monopolists, and so costly to collect, to be permanently maintained ? The battle of taxation has still to be fought, and the next election will probably decide whether a graduated land tax and a small income tax should not take the place of the great American scheme. We do not know whether the administration of the property tat has been all that was possible, but it cannot be doubted that the failure here is notorious. The Act was passed in 1879, and we are now in 1881, and the returns are only just in, while the tax cannot be collected to any extent in the present financial year. Schedules innumerable have been sent out, and the people have been worried almost beyond endurance. At last the cumbrous machine begins to move, when it is found that instead of a power represented by 470, it is only equal to the task of moving 270 ! Compare this with the land tax. The estimate of the tax was £100,000, and the actual return gave £99,000. The Act came into force in the beginning of 1879, and the whole of the valuations had been made and the exact amount of the revenue ascertained in time for the session of the same year. A new department had to be organised, everything had to be worked up from the beginning, and all data ascertained without the advantage of corresponding facts and figures already provided. Yet the work was done quickly and completely. The contrast is certainly remarkable. With all this work at his band we see what a muddle the Colonial Treasurer has made of the initiation and administration of the property tax. The result is equally unsatisfactory. We shall not attempt to apportion tbe blame. To wba| extent tb§

iailnre is due to the viciouaness of the scheme, or to the incapacity of the administration, time only can tell.