COMPANY TAXATION.

Taranaki Daily News, 14 September 1917, Page 6

COMPANY TAXATION.

REPRESENTATIONS TO FINANCE MINISTER.. By Telegraph.—Press Association. Wellington. Sept. 13. The chairman of the Stock Exchange, infa letter to the Minister of Finance, points out that section I of clatifie 37 of the Finance Bill has been amended, to make the benefit of the clause apply to persons whoso annual income , is not greater than £41)0, instead of £3OO, as originally proposed. This relief to the small taxpayer is, however, in the opinion of the Exchange practically nullified by the proviso which follows the clause, the ellect of the proviso being, as the Exchange reads it, that the dividend paid to a shareholder plus the amount he is entitled under the clause to claim for before the commissioner as a reclamation on account of the higher rate of tax paid by the shareholder's company, are together not to exceed six per cent on the total amount paid up in respect of his shares: That the Exchange takes to mean the total amountpaid up as appearing in the share register of the company. If this is correct then, in view of the fact that the great bulk of the shares of sound and favorite companies have been for many years at a considerable premium, the result iwill be that in hardly more than two or three companies will it happen that the conditions under which the refund of the high rate of taxation could be claimed will exist and the prospect of relief thus held out becomes in the great majority of cases of no real avail. Had it been enacted that the combined rate was not to exceed six per cent, on the market value of the shares at the present time, then some real relief would bo given, instead of a mero simulacrum of it. The Exchange asks whether this could be done.