THE BACHELOR TAX

Rotorua Morning Post, Volume 2, Issue 473, 6 March 1933, Page 4

THE BACHELOR TAX

There will be wide differences of opinion as to whether single people should pay inor^ taxation than the married. Probably the rights and wrongs will be assessed in most cases according to the personal state of the taxpayer. If he or she is single (for

the Government's proposal applie's to bacheior and spinster, widower. and widow alike) the additfonal impost will be resented. The married people will not approve with any enthusiasm for they receive no relief personally by the ehange. To be sure an exemption of £50 a year j is given to the taxpayer with a wife, but this is only done by first taking it away from the i taxpayer himself . An exemption for a wife is granted in other j countries, and there are good reasons for granting it here. Be- ; cause children must be maintained the State a'.'.lows a deduction from assessable ' income on their aeeount, and the exemption for a wife is equaily reasonable, for, as all married couples are well aware, there is no truth in j the old saying that two can live j as cheaply as one. Here it is proI posed to allow £5C for the wife, the same as for a child. More ! would be justified. It must not be overlooked, however, that this : change will add to the taxable ineome of a considerable class of 'married men — those whose wives I earn or receive in their own ; right more than £50 a year. These will lose £50 of their own exemption, and will not be en- | titled to any part of the wife's

exemption. They will thus have to pay tax on an additional £50 or part thereof. In other words, part of the wife's income on earnings will become taxable, whereas hitherto they have been taxable only if they exceed £260. This will apply to cases where husband and wife are both working, and where the family savings have been put in the wife's name — if these savings .return more than £50 a year. Possibly all members of Parliament do not fully realise the f ar-reaching character of the Government's proposal. But they may be grateful that the tax is not so heavy as to be open to condemnation as a measure for compulsory marriage. Those who have chosen hitherto to remain single or have remained single without ehoiee are unlikely now to choose marriage in ordei' to escape income tax.