The Taihape Daily Times. AND WAIMARINO ADVOCATE FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 7, 1917. REFLECTIONS ON TAXATION.

Taihape Daily Times, Issue 220, 7 September 1917, Page 4

The Taihape Daily Times. AND WAIMARINO ADVOCATE

FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 7, 1917. REFLECTIONS ON TAXATION.

(With which is incorporated The Taihape Post and Waimarino News).

Whether appearances are what they seem or not it looks very much as though our Parliament were divided into two sections, at least on the taxation proposals now before the House, Government versus all other Members. One side proposes the other does it utmost in antagonism to the last clause.. It contributes very little to an ordinary taxpayers good opinion of his Parliament to read what is being done; the House is hugely selfish or it is astonishingly magnanimous. If it is composed of fairly weil-to-do men the results are a disappointment, if the poorer class predominates then they .show a truly wonderful concern for taxpayers who may rightly be classed as rich. Farmers of the country are coming through the next, taxing ordeal most honourably, perhaps noticeably so. There has been but thin or isolated opposition to that portion of taxation proposals in the Finance Act winch affect them and their business. The Mortgage Tax, even, has not caUl'ed forth any marked opposition; farmers have realised that these are not normal times and that everything ordinarily normal must give way to the extraordinary to a greater or lesser degree, and they have acquiesced on what they are told is in the best interests of the country. The men who hold the bulk of company shares are not quite so tractable as farmers; they have held meetings and approached the Minister by deputation; journals that professedly stand for the poorest class of taxpayers have joined in the hue and cry to have taxation on public companies, reduced, and by their persistence they have succeeded, why, from a just point of view, we cannot quite realise Yet, men, or a man, who for thirty-five years has been a professed moralist is among the foremost to lighten taxation on those who should bear it and put it upon the poor. He has shown that a streakof faction and fanaticism renders all he says something to be doubted, at least, that the proverbial grano salis should b e applied to it. However, the Minister has given way to the clamour fer redue-

tion of the proposed taxation of public companies. They have urged that it is unjust to tax a man who is a shareholder in a company, and again tax the profits on his shares. We take it there are no sources of income that are not first entitled to the exemption of £3OO fixed by the Bill. Whether .a man's income is from shares, or his own or somebody else© manual labour the first £3OO is not taxable. What right have shareholders in companies to any further consideration? 'At the moment we cannot state with definite knowledge on the point but we are at least reasonable in presuming that the net income of companies is also exempt from taxation up to £3OO. If this is so where does the much vaunted anomalous taxation come in to warrant a shareholder in a public company being ' given a £4OO exemption while everybody else is only exempted up to £300? If there is any such virtue in being a shareholder then we shall soon find that most people with big incomes will have at least one share in some company and shares will be at a premium. We are perhaps going a little to extremes, but we are also casting aside the craft of finance. A great deal of maudlin humbug has been indulged in; the poor man' with a few shares is trotted out, as the stalking horse of rich men. The balance sheets of public companies and trading corporations are the best evidence of what these huge profit earning concerns should do by way of taxation. We had a glimpse of one the other day that showed a profit of from forty-five to fifty per cent, profit. It is not the poor man with his few pound shares, it is the man of opulence that wants to avoid paying his dues in taxation. It is absurd to hold up the poor shareholder, for, even though he did on his few | shares have to pay the higher company | rate, the difference wouflil be negliI gible. No, it is the thousands of pounds share men who ar e squealing, for no .poor shareholder could exercise that influence with the Finance Minister to secure any reduction of the burden he has to carry. We are told that taxing companies is penalising thrift; that companies take a great share in developing industries of the country. In the latter lies the whole secret; we have only to ascertain wdiat companies take a great share in the development of the country to definitely realise who are the men and what are the companies that are going to be given taxation advantages over all other taxpayers. Moneyed men, and professed moralists in the House have argued to tax the sixpenny amusement ticket of the poorest in the land while in the same breath almost, they urge that the thousands of pounds worth of scrip of the rich man shall be tenderly treated and its burden lightened. The Minister of yEinanjce tcftd' dejpujtatljon of shareholders that ,to remove what they termed an anomaly was only to substitute something that was more anomalous. It is not to the credit of Parliament or country that all 'the forces of money in the Hous e should be used to secure reduction of taxation for the rich; while scarcely a voice is.raised against the additional heavy burdens that have been laid on the poor. The proposal to tax a sixpenny amusement ticket was obviously levelled at the very poorest in the 'liandand th e Minister, unasked, abandoned it. The threepence a pound on tea is also a mass tax, unless its incidence is altered and made leviable upon the value of tes As it stood the poor man's tea at a shilling a pound is increased by the tax 25 per cent., the rich man's tea. at three shillings is not increased 10 per cent. Yet the masses have not howled out against the injustice. A general view of the whole taxation question shows clearly* that it is those best able to pay who are fighting tooth and nail, against the Minister's adjustments. It is for the ordinary businessman and shopkeeper to take a stand that will keep up the spending power of the greatest number o*2 people.