CURRENT TOPICS.

Taranaki Daily News, 21 August 1917, Page 4

CURRENT TOPICS.

TAXATION OF COMPANIES.

M e again urge the necessity, if gross injustice is to be averted, of amending the present method of taxing the earning'' °f companies. The point requires no elaborate argument. The taxation now is levied upon a company's income in 0110 sum, notwithstanding that the income is shared by persons of widely varying circumstances. A wido\\\ invests all her capital—£sool), we will say—in a large company. If that company earns as much as £O4OO her share is to bo reduced by 7s (id in the pound. Hut if her investments had taken any ■ether form, and returned (i per cent, sli'e would pay no income tax at all. Now that is confiscation, if anything is. The remedy appears to us to present no great diilieulties. The law might easily require a company to report to the Department its individual distribution of cividends, so that personal incomes could be traced and returns checked, while such earnings as were not disbursed among shareholders could be taxed separately. The, imposition of heavy taxation acceir 'ales the long-standing injustice to wlueh we refer and makes its removal a plain and simple- duty, while on the general subject of the income tax, we should very much like to see a differentiation between incomes earned airl unearned. The justice of that principle is well established, and we are aware of no rea-son why it should not be recognised by the New Zealand Parliament. None of these reforms would make a heavy demand on the intelligence of the House to arrange or of the Commissioner of Taxes to carry out, and they all come legitimately within the domain of "war legislation," to which the Government wishes to restrict the work of. the session.—<Lytteiton