INCOME TAX BASIS

Sun (Auckland), Volume IV, Issue 1074, 11 September 1930, Page 10

INCOME TAX BASIS

OFFICIAL OPPOSITION TO REDUCTION PROPOSAL “The proposal to reduce the income-tax exemption has been considered in the past but has not been deemed practicable." The Chamber of Commerce today received this reply to a suggestion advanced by one of its members to reduce exemption to £2OO income, from the Acting-Prime Minister, the Hon. E. A. Ransom. Both the Taxation Commission of 1924 and tho recent Committee on Unemployment reported against the proposal, Mr. Ransom said, on the grounds that the gain to the revenue would not compensate for the expertise and tho difficulty of collection. The alteration in the law would create a class of taxpayer not easy to handle and which would be to some extent resentful of the imposition. Replying to another suggestion by the member of the chamber, Mr. Ransom said tho allowance of a £2OO exemption with allowance for wife and children would mean that the tax in the lower grades would amount to a tax on bachelors. In England, the minimum rate of tax was 2s 3d compared with 7d in New Zealand and the cost of collection was reduced by collection at the source. The chamber will take no action on the proposals of its members.