The Daily News. SATURDAY, MARCH 25, 1922. TAXATION REFORM.

Taranaki Daily News, 25 March 1922, Page 4

The Daily News. SATURDAY, MARCH 25, 1922. TAXATION REFORM.

For a long time past strong representations have been made by way of protest against not only the general taxation policy of the Government, but against the incidence of that taxation. It is not for lack of outspoken criticism that the evils of the present, system have not been remedied, for denunciation has been persistent —so fat—without securing an alteration, nor does it seem likely that the present Parliament will

initiate a satisfactory reformThat farmers have been struck by hard times, and are finding out to their sorrow that they are being hard hit by the adverse influence of the income tax on the advances and mortgages they have to negotiate, by reason of the manner in which the large companies from which advances are obtainable are made to suffer as the result of the heavy taxation to which they are subjected. These companies are worked on business lines with the main end of obtaining profits, so that in fixing the interest on advanees they have to allow for Visits, working expenses, -depreciation of values anti taxation. The continuation of the war legislation concerning mortgages has been a factor in diverting money from -these concerns- to investments in semi-gilt edged securities that are not subject to taxation raids or some of the risks of the stock aud station companies, and as a consequence many farmers have been obliged to raise money where they could, and at ruinous rates of interest. Again and again the Premier has admitted the necessity for taxation reform. The persistent refusal ot the Taxation Department bureaucrats to allow shareholders of companies to be taxed on their dividends, merely because it is less trouble to levy the impost on the companies, may be intelligible as an indication of departmental laissez faire, but it forms a strong indictment against a Government which permits such a state ot affairs to exist. The Farmers Union has now taken up this vexed question, so that it is possible the Government may be persuaded to effect reforms in the directions desired. Although this is only one direction in which the call for reform has grown with remarkable strength, it should bring home to the Government that taxation reform can no longer be put off.