ROMAN CLERGY AND INCOME TAX

Hokitika Guardian, 17 March 1920, Page 3

ROMAN CLERGY AND INCOME TAX

REV. HOWARD ELLIOTT’S STATEMENT. WELLINGTON, March 10. Tlie Rev. Howard Elliott has handed to the Press the following statement in reply to the statement made by Sir Joseph Ward oil the eve of his departure for Australia on the question of the alleged exemption of Roman clergy from income tax.

The answer furnished by Sir Joseph Ward, as ex-M inister of Finance on this question answers nothing, and is another of the adroit evasions with which we are becoming familiar. On the surface it would appear that Ids letter to tho Minister in charge of the Land and Income Tax Department, and the reply thereto by tho Commissioner of Taxes had completely refuted the suggestion made, but that is not so. The Commissioner of Taxes wrote: “Priests are not exempt from income tax if in receipt of stipends, exceeding the statutory exemp tion.” That is to say, if priests receive “stipends” they are not exempt if the “stipend ’exceeds tho statutory exemption. But it is claimed hv the Church that, priests do not receive “stipends” unless they are chaplains to some public institution ; they are said to receive only “free will or voluntary offerings,” which do not constitute “stipends.” Sir William Eidgwny wrote to “The Times” on this subject oil July 29th and August Bth last challenging anyone to prove that he was in error in alleging that Roman priests in Ireland and England wore exempted from income tax on tho above mentioned grounds. The same plea operates to their advantage in Canada and Australia, and 1 have reason to believe that it operates also in Now Zealand. It is a pure technicality, hut it serves the purpose. Almost every Ministers salary or stipend is raised by voluntary “offering,” though it be paid by the church officials to the minister in a monthly sum, and the plea that a Roman Catholic priest has “no stipend,” and therefore cannot make a return, is nonsense. It. has been estimated that the average income o| the ordinal' parish priest greatly exceeds the average stipend of the ordinary minister. IJiider the usual interpretation of the law, bachelor priests are exempt, whilst married clergy have to pay income tax. This is ail injustice not only to ministers hut to every section of the tax-pay-ing members of the community.