TAXING THE FARMERS

Sun (Auckland), Volume IV, Issue 1057, 22 August 1930, Page 11

TAXING THE FARMERS

REFORM MEMBER’S PLEA “DOUBLE TAX WRONG” THE SUN’S Parliamentary Report** PARLIAMENT BLDGS., Thursday. The abolition of the land-tax and the substitution of an income-tax and rates in its stead was advocated by Mr. I). Jones (Reform —Mid-Canter-bury) in his speech on the second reading of the Land and Income-Tax Amendment Bill, in the House this evening. He said that he had always held that the double tax was wrong. He had been supported in that view many times by the late Sir Joseph Ward and the Minister of Lands, the Hon. E. A. Ransom, had also supported him. There was a difference in the proposals, as they affected the city and country. The rates on the country were quite big enough without any tax at all. Mr. J. S. Fletcher (Independent— Grey Lynn): There are rates in the city too. Mr. Jones: I am not discussing the city at the moment. The rates in the country liad been increased by legislation passed already this session, he said, and as far as the rates were concerned there were too many reaping in the same field. There were county rates, hospital board rates, drainage board rates and power board rates in some districts. Then there was the land-tax and the income-tax. Mr. W. E. Barnard (Labour — Napier): Do you object to an incometax for farmers? He did not object to the income-tax if the land-tax was wiped out. Mr. Jones replied, and rates were allowed to take its place. That was what would come sooner or later. He suggested that the Government should let the whole of New Zealand get down to the income-tax alone and then far more farmers would be paying on what their land earned. The Leader of the Labour Party, Mr. H. E. Holland: Would you take the land-tax off city property? That was-another matter, Mr. Jones said. Taxation on land was going to be very heavy, because the extra petrol-tax would have to be added to the taxes he had mentioned. Mr. G. C. Munns (United —Roskill): The cities will pay the petrol-tax. New Zealand was faced with strong competition in the markets of the* Old Country from countries where land and labour were cheap, concluded Mr. Jones, and the only way New Zealand could meet that competition was by relieving the farmers of some of their taxation.