INCREASED TAXATION.

King Country Chronicle, Volume III, Issue 184, 23 August 1909, Page 5

INCREASED TAXATION.

l ln answer to Mr ?<!r\?.---y'.-■ -n'. I Dr Findlay's Ttrv.aru ?;■<-■•«?eh, the Attorney • Genrral informed an interviewer at Wellington in effect that he bad been misrepresented by Mr Masaey in regard to what he bad said concerning the Government and taxation. What be bad raid at Timaru was that the taxation upon the great mass of the people had been reduced by the present Government by an amount equal to from 25 per cent, to 30 per cent., while more was now paid in direct taxation by some 41,000 people- not because the rate bad increased, but because their wealth or income had greatly increased. This Mr Massey unequivocally deiied, and fell back for proof upon a sum in simple division found in the Year Book, where the total taxation from all sources, direct and indirect, is divided by our whole population—man, woman, and child - and thus an increased per capita quotient is shown.

[ In regarJ to death duties.Mr Massey had represented hims as having said: "There seems no reason why, after a certain degree of remoteness of kinship, the claim of the Sttac should not prevail over that of absentee relatives." What he did say waa that in 15 years £51,000,000 of wealth had passed to hands that had not earned it, while all the State got-the State that bad helped to create much of the wealth —•was £3 IBs per cent. He had showed that many of our landed estates escaped duty altogether, and then declared 'that when a man died in New Zealand without making any will, and died without leaving anyone in New Zealand related to biro, no matter how remotest was unfair that that wealth should pass out of New Zealand. Mr Massey bad assured bis interviewer that all the speaker bad said indicated that the Government intended to increase taxation. As regards death duties, he certainly thought that they should be increased. The intention of the Government to increase these duties was sttacd by the Prime Minister some months ago. As regards other taxation be had nowhere suggested that it should be increased.