TAXATION OF FILMS

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 463, 19 September 1928, Page 14

TAXATION OF FILMS

BILL DISCUSSED IN COMMITTEE NO LEVY ON PICTUREGOERS (THE SUN’S Parliamentary Reporter) WELLINGTON, To-day. The Cinematograph Films Bill, as amended by the select committee, which effected modifications relaxing both the taxation and the quota provisions of the original Bill, came up for committal in the House of Representatives last night. The Bill was put through the committee stages with minor amendments and passed. The Prime Minister, who is in charge of the Bill, said that the film interests had undertaken to observe the voluntary quota system. They disliked even the modified taxation proposed in the amended Bill, but preferred it to the original proposal. Mr. W. J. Girling: I should think so. Mr. Coates: Yes, taxation has been dropped from £ 39,000 to somewhere round about £5,000. Mr. E. J. Howard feared that even reduced taxation, as embodied in the amended Bill, would be passed on to the film-going public. He did not think the original proposals would have been altered had this not been election year. Mr. Coates:'You are being as unfair as it is possible to be. Mr. Howard said that from the moment the film interests threatened to use the screen for political propaganda purposes the original proposals were dropped. Showmen knew their business and knew it was election and saw their opportunity to apply pressure. The result was this baldheaded Bill which had everything taken out of it. Mr. A. M. Samuel: Bo you want to pass £40,000 in extra taxation on tp picturegoers ? Mr. Howard: No, but I don’t see why the film interests should have special treatment. Mr. A. Harris, chairman of the committee, said that alterations to the Bill rather than being the result of political propaganda, were the result of the committee’s meticulous investigation. Many clauses in the original Bill were not practicable, and would have meant hardship to the film industry. Exhibitors had endeavoured to encourage British films as much as they could. This had to be recognised. The original tax proposed in the Bill was out of all reason. It was not taxation but confiscation, and would inevitably have been passed on to the public, but he did not think the Revised scale of taxation could be passed on. Sir Joseph Ward assured the House that British films would assuredly taK£ their place ultimately in the scale of popularity. British stars, managers and helpers were in keen demand at Hollywood. Mr. T. M. Wilford said that the Prime Minister would be well advised to allow preference to British films on an income tax basis. He believed with Sir Joseph Ward that British filrq? would come into their own. The high

quality >of British art was recognised at Hollywood, where Charles Leighton, born at Takapuna, Auckland, was general manager of the Famous PlayersLasky studio, while an Australian was his secretary. Mr. H. E. Holland said that the Bill was so altered as to be unrecognisable. He did not think the present situation w T ould be altered much by this Bill. Mr. J. A. Lee said that too much “America we won the war stuff” appeared in American pictures. Mr. Coates, replying to the criticism, said that the whole object of the Bill was to tax films in such a way that the tax could not be passed on.