WELLINGTON TOPICS

Taranaki Daily News, 2 August 1919, Page 7

WELLINGTON TOPICS

INCOME AND TAXATION.

HOW THEY ARE DISTRIBUTED,

(Special Correspondent). Wellington, July 30. The analysis of the income tax paid during the financial year 1917-18, which the Hon. A. M. Myers, the Acting-Min-ister of Finance, has had prepared, shows &t a glance and in a very striking Way the shoulders upon which the burden of the Dominion's enormous war turo has been falling. Mr. Myers docs not imply for a moment that the man who pays income tax is among the chief sufferers from the unparalleled demands [which have been made upon the resources of the country; but he proves by actual figures that the burden has been distributed with a nice regard for the principle of equality of sacrifice. In one ~x>f his tables, for instance, it is shown that while £10.305,690 received by 26,321 individuals with income! not exceeding £650 a year paid £179 4s 4d by way of ordinary tax and war tax, £9,043,347 received by 290 individuals with incomes exceeding £IO,OOO a year paid £3,236,247. , _ . GROWTH OP INCOMES. Another striking feature of the figures is the light they throw upon the growth in the number of the smaller incomes' In 191041 there were 9365 individuals paying tax on incomes under £9OO, In 1914-15 the number had increase! to 11,351 and in 1917-18 to 21,250. There have been increases in the number of the larger incomes, but to nothing like the same extent as in the smaller incomes. In 1910-11 the incomes over £9OO a year numbered 1938, in 1914-15 261U and in 1917-18 4142. Mr. Myers' explanation of the significance of these figures is, no doubt, the correct one. "The large increase in the number of taxpayers for 1917-18," he says, "is due in a largo measure, as will readily be surmised, to the increased salaries received and profits on trading made on account of war conditions prevailing during the period under review." But the point upon which both the Minister and his chief well may take same credit, is that the heroic taxation to which they committed themselves early in the war has worked out very much as they predicted it would. SANE LABOR. Mir. Veitch's spirited address to his constituents at Wanganui is not the only sign of a movement among sane Labour to assert itself at the approaching general election. For some time the workers jn Otago have been resenting the domination of the Labor Representation Committee, which, they say, never possessed the confidence of a majority of the unionists and remained in office during the war merely through the npithy of the people who put them there Even in Wellington, with the glamour of two successful by-elections on the side of the existing organisation, official Labor is beginning to question the wisdom of its leaders' tactics. .This does not necessarily mean that a large number of workers are going to attach themselves to one or the other of the old parties, but it probably indicates a return to sanity by a. large body of workers. THE COAL QUEUE. Cold wintry weather happening to fall on the two days appointed for registering orders at the State Coal Depot, the eruel inadequacy of the arrangements was.exposed in all its nakedness. The queue extending half across the street in front of the depot consisted chiefly of women, many of them with children clinging to their bedraggled skirts, and there it remained from early in the morning till late in the afternoon. Of course every woman and child in the crowd was drenched to the skin and numbers of them had to return to homes in which there was not as much as a spoonful of coal. Then it occurred to the; Mayor to offer the Town Hall for shelter of the queue, and yesterday, thanks to the improved arrangements, l;he spectacle of waiting mothers and wjyes was scarcely so pathetic. That the coal famine in Wellington is a very real thing, however, was demnostrated beyond the shadow of a doubt.