The Stratford Evening Post WITH WHICH IS INCORPORATED THE EGMONT SETTLER. MONDAY, MARCH 15, 1915. SUGGESTED WAR TAX.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXV, Issue 61, 15 March 1915, Page 4

The Stratford Evening Post WITH WHICH IS INCORPORATED THE EGMONT SETTLER. MONDAY, MARCH 15, 1915. SUGGESTED WAR TAX.

The proposal recently put forward by Mr Harold Beauchamp, Chairman of the Bank of New Zealand, that the war tax should be in the form of an additional import and export duty of one per cent, estimated to realise an amount of five hundred thousand pounds per annum, is .variously received by different sections of the community. A number of leading Auckland exporters and importers asked to express opinions on the proposal were by no means unanimous in their view. Mr Robert Burns, President. of the Chamber of Commerce and Act-ing-Consul for Belgium, said that a ■war tax should operate so as to cover every class in the community able to contribute, and this in his opinion, an increase of export and import duties would not bring about. Mr A. B. Roberton, while favoring Mr Beauchamp's scheme considers it does not go far enough, and thinks that the Land and Income Tax ought to be amended so as to take in all incomes over £2OO a year, and to increase the payments on a sliding scale making provision for exemption to the extent of amounts voluntarily given to Patriotic \>r Relief Funds, and permitting other exemptions. Another leading trader expressed the view thati Mr Beauchamp has suggested the best possible solution of the problem. One of the principal men connected with the Dairy Association dissents from Mr Beauchamp's proposal, on the ground that the burden would fall almost entirely on only one section ofthe community, and that the producer. I Mr Beauchamp had recognised this, but pointed out that the producer was at present receiving advantage from the war which would enable him to meet the tax and still derive benefit. This contention would lie commendable if there was any probability of the tax terminating with the war. Such,; however, it is pointed out, cannot be the case. If the war terminated about the end of the present year, the tax would probably continue for five, or six years longer, and if the war ran on for a further year the additional expenditure would be so great that the! war tax would probably continue for ten years after the Avar terminated. There was a probability that during the greater part of the time -that the war tax would continue the price of products would rule low, for undoubtedly war conditions had inflated values, and the termination of the war would see lower prices. A leading Laborite suggests a method of taxation adopted by America to cover the cost of the war against Spain by taxing racing and amusements, and everything in the nature of luxuries. On the occasion referred to there was

a special issue of the war-tax stamp:-, and even a five per cent, packet of sweets had to bear a quarter cent. war-tax stamp. Some such system as that, he held, together with increasing Land and Income Tax, was the method which Labor was most likely to approve in meeting the cost of New Zealand's war expenditure.