PAYMENT OF INCOME TAX

Evening Post, Volume CXXIII, Issue 50, 1 March 1937, Page 8

PAYMENT OF INCOME TAX

(To the Editor.)

Sir,—The complaints of the wrathful persons who were shut out from the Income Tax Office on Saturday are very amusing, particularly as they come from "prominent business men" who presumably like to regard themselves as being the last word in "efficiency." Perhaps a couple of questions would not be out of place:

1. Seeing that the tax was due (note the word "due") on February 8, and that in most cases the demands we're in the hands of taxpayers nearly a week earlier, why leave the matter of making the payment until the last day, and then expect somebody to work overtime to protect the taxpayer from the penalties which he may incur as a result of his own dilatoriness?

2. What would the same prominent business man say to a proposal that he incur the expense of "bringing back two or three clerks" at overtime rates in order to collect money due to him by a certain date, but not paid until the last minute—the clerks being brought back with the sole object of preventing his dilatory business associates from losing their discounts.

On the other hand, the Department could assist the taxpayer by printing on the demand form a statement of the hours when the public office is open for business. The suggestion that the office be opened on Saturdays

should not, however, 'be entertained. Taxpayers were given upwards of three weeks in which to discharge the liability and it is a certainty .that had the time been three months a similar complaint would have been forthcoming on the last day.

This talk about the "loss of time" is not convincing. A man who can spend time to go to the Tax Office (with the inevitable wait while the transaction is recorded) is not so very busy and his time cannot be valuable. When one considers that a mailed cheque will do the job in the thirty seconds necessary to write it and at a cost of fourpence —and will do it even on a Saturday morning—really, Mr. Editor, the whole complaint must be classified as frivolous.—l am, etc.,