DR. FRANK CRANE’S DAILY EDITORIAL

Sun (Auckland), Volume 1, Issue 21, 16 April 1927, Page 16

DR. FRANK CRANE’S DAILY EDITORIAL

OCTROI (Copyright, 1927.) WE have all sorts of pernicious schemes of taxation. We levy a tax upon thrift; we burden production, and set a premium upon extravagance: we seem wholly committed to the Bolshevik theory of the income-tax, and we so far have refused to accept the theory of the much more rational salestax; we have turned our backs upon the single taxers. And yet we have something to be thankful for. There is a device in Europe that is particularly annoying which so far we have escaped. It is another ingenious Robin Hood and pestiferous method of the government for wringing money out of the people. It is called the octroi. It means that a tax is levied upon all produce that is brought into the city. In addition to having tax collectors at the ports where goods are brought in from foreign countries, they have tax collectors at the gates of the city who industriously examine all carts and waggons and levy a few’ cents’ tax on every pound of beef and every bundle of vegetables. The amount paid of course is quite insignificant, but it is none the less annoying. The question must occur to a nan up a tree why governments when they want money should not ask the people directly for it instead or using such round-about methods as tariffs and income tax and octroi. The only answer seems to be that nobody wants to pay tax at all and the most successful tax is the one that is levied most indirectly. Taxing seems to be a matter regulated on the Robin Hood theory which consists of despoiling those who have and sparing those who have not .. No pretence is made that this is just. The only pretence is that those who have plenty ought not to squeal. They are lucky to have money wherewith to pay the taxes. The result is that we tax industry and production, whereas we should tax podigality and expenditure. The octroi seems to be the most ingeniously devilish method ye devolved for taxing the people.