Manawatu Herald. TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 25, 1879. THE PROPERTY TAX.

Manawatu Herald, Volume II, Issue 27, 25 November 1879, Page 2

Manawatu Herald. TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 25, 1879. THE PROPERTY TAX.

The new taxes proposed by the Hall Government amount to an increase of nearly £2 per head on every man, woman, and child in the Colony. As a matter of fact, however, the burden of the increased taxation will not affect a great proportion of the people in the Colony. For instance, the property tax is estimated to bring in £470,000, but it will touch only those who possess property amounting in value to over £800. All over that amount will be taxed one penny in the £. A man who owns property to the extent of £400 will thus pay only 8s 4d under the property tax. It will therefore be seen that so far as the great mass of the people are concerned, the new tax will affect them lightly. The men who will feel the tax most are those best able to pay it— the wealthy. Under the new tax, everything a man owns will be included as his property. Not only land and houses, but shares, mortgages, furniture, jewellery, everything he owns will be taxed at the rate of one penny per £. This will be fairer than the land tax. Under that a man paid for everything he held. For instance, supposing a farmer held land of the value of £10,000, which was mortgaged for £8,000. Although he owned only an interest of £2,000 in the property, he was taxed for £10,000, whilst the mortgagee, who in reality owned fourfifths of the land, got off scot free. Under the property tax this will be altered. Every man will pay a tax upon what is his. If a farmer holds land of the value of £2,000, upon which there exists a mortgage of £1,000, he will pay the tax on his own thousand, and the mortgagee will pay it on the amount he has lent. The tax, however, will be a most difficult one to arrive at. Beal property — land, houses; &c. —is easily valued; but^it is a very different thing when we come to personal property, including a man's furniture and books, his wife's jewellery, &c, &c. Major Atkinson said in his Statement that the Government were opposed to an income tax owing to its inquisitorial character; but to carry out the property tax in a thorough manner, would simply mean instituting a system of inquisitorship infinitely worse tnan would be required for an income tax. We say to carry out the property tax in a thorough manner ; because we believe the machinery proposed by the Government will not effect this. It will instead offer a premium to dishonesty, and lead to a reign of swindling and financial immorality. For, how is the value of property to be arrived at ? The Government, to avoid the unpleasantness attaching to such a matter, propose to make each man his own valuer, furnish him with a schedule, and allow him to fill in the list of his property, with its value. Now, this proposal assumes a degree of honesty the world has never seen, nor will ever see until the Millennium. Any person accustomed to notice the efforts made by owners of property to have their valuations reduced by the Assessment Courts, will see at once the tremendous amount of lying, cheating, and swindling that will be perpetrated if men are allowed to value their own property, especially that within their homes. Does any one, with the faintest knowledge of human, nature, suppose that an

honest and true valuation would be made ? We confess we do not. Such a system will be merely giving a preiniuni to dishonesty, and will sap and undermine the commercial morality of the Colony. Cheating the Government is, we know, regarded as a very venial sin, but when cheating becomes part of a man's character, the transition from the Government to the individual is extremely easy. We therefore regard the tax upon personal property as a mistake, owing to the difficulty of arriving at its real value. If the State were to appoint valuators for the work, so large a number would be required that the tax would be (like the land tax) eaten iip in expenses. Besides this, the people of the Colony would not submit to inquisitorial valuators in their homes, counting up their tables, pictures, &c, and valuing them. On the other hand, we affirm that the majority of men will not and cannot make a fair and true valuation of what they possess in their homes. Experience teaches this. We hold, therefore, that a property-tax should be levied iipon — first, real property, including laud, houses, shares, &c. *; second, upon cash balances, or money lent ; third, upon money invested in any way intended to return an income to the investor — for example, in nianufactuiing machinery or plant of any description ; whilst personal property or furniture should not be taxed, excepting under Customs duties when it arrives in the country. The above method would, we believe, reach the classes who should bear the increased taxation. It would obviate the difficulties we have pointed out as attaching to that proposed by the Government, and would, we believe, be more acceptable to the country generally.