INCOME TAX.

Taranaki Daily News, 11 August 1917, Page 6

INCOME TAX.

To tlio Editor. 'Sir, —Tr. your sub-leader on "Income Tax" in (.his morning's "».ss.uc. taken from the Auckland Herald, occurs the following pas-age: "Another new revenue producing i"'';i'-uiv h t'!i> gr.idunUou of tiic exemption. Previously i;il incomes -were subject to nn exemption of £Bflp. Now the fill! exemption is to lie given only on incomes up to £(><)o. From that, point the exemption is to gradually decrease, and will disappear at .£000." I am not sure that i'his is a statement of fact, and would ask you if the writer of the article has not made a mistake in his reading of -he Budget. The way I read the paragraph in the Budget referring to an exemption is not in reference to the statutory exemption of £3OO on incomes, but to the>«xemption of 5 per cent, on the value, of hind used in the production of the income. Previously an allowance from incomes was made of 5 per cent, of the capital value of the land used in producing the income. The Budget proposes to abolish this and sub- ; stitute a . r > per cent, allowance on the unimproved value of the land only; but this exemption to be allowed in full up to an income of £ COO and to gradually decrease thereafter until it vanishes at £9OO. If this is so, then the article referred to is misleading, inasmuch as the. ;C:iOO statutory exemption is apparently still to be allowed on all incomes.—f am, etc., 'C. L. W. Klthain, Aug. 9, 1917. [The facta were correctly stated in tlio extract from our Auckland contemporary. The Finance Minisif. 1 clearly said: ''The exemption will be allowed in full on assessable incomes up to £OOO only, and will then decrease by | £1 for every £1 of increase m the assessable income over £t>iW, so xs to disappear at £ooo."—Kd.]