HIGHER COSTS

Hokitika Guardian, 18 February 1933, Page 7

HIGHER COSTS

SALES TAX EFFECT ON TIMBER

APPEAL FOB, EXEMPTION

WELLINGTON, February Hi

A strong |dea that timber and gold mining machinery .should he exempted from the provisions of the Sales Tax Bill wins made hy Mr J. O’Brien (Labour, Westland) during the second reading deb-arc in the House ol Represent;) ti vos vesterdav.

'Hie Bill would mean that the tax would be added two or three times to the cost of a gob! dredge, said Mr O'Rrieo, and the industry, from which great tilings wore expected, would be severely handicapped. There was no reason why timber should not bo exempted. Ten years ago, the timber industry was employing 10,000 men. To-dav, it was not employing 200. It was no use saying that New Zealand was over-built. As long as two and three families wore living in a house it would not be over-built. The tax applied to all phases of the building industry and the tax would be levied on everything that went, into a new house, tint's increasing its price tremendously. M<r O’Brien also .referred to the effect of the sales tax and other recent legislation on the hotel business. He pointed out that there was now more duty on whisky than the actual cost of the spirit. “It would be better to wipe the- hotel business ouit altogether than to do it piecemeal in tills way,” he added. “The . small hotelkeeper and the small shopkeeper must go out of business.”