FARMERS’ ACCOUNTS.

Taranaki Daily News, 18 August 1922, Page 6

FARMERS’ ACCOUNTS.

THE WAY TO KEEP BOOKS. Speaking at Feilding recently, Mr. N. Gorton said that if farmers had kept books they would not have paid the exorbitant prices for land they had been paying lately. Bankers, grocers and auctioneers could not run their businesses •without keeping sets of books, then how could farmers conduct their business without books? The Income Tax Commissioner knew that farmers generally did not keep proper books, and therefore could not make out proper income tax returns, and he had sent officers throughout the Dominion with authority to inspect farmers’ bank books, stock agents’ accounts, etc. Several of these officers in Taranaki had recently collected £30,000 in taxes and fines from farmers who had not sent in proper returns. One such officer called on a farmer in the Feilding district to pay £9OO income tax. In another case an accountant found that a local farming estate had paid over £3OO too much in tax. In order to meet the difficulties experienced by the average farmer in regard to book-keeping there has been compiled what is known as “The Pason Taxpayers’ Compiler,” a simple and most careful book that every farmer, whether •he pays income tax or not, should have )by him. The book provides for every operation on a farm, directions being given on each page as to which section of the income tax- returns the particulars on that page ’belong. There is a tabbed index, giving ready access to each part. It is as near fool-proof as it is possible to make a book, and serves the farmer as well as a set of books does a business man. Other excellent features of the publication are extracts from and explanations of the statutes relating to land and income tax. fencing, stamp duties and birth registration, and a practical example o-f an income tax return filled in All in all the publication is admirably adapted for its intended purpose, and provides the necessary pages for a complete record of eight consecutive ! years. The Commissioner of Taxes, i Wellington, who states that it is not his practice to approve books or systems of accounts, writes: “I may, howlever say of the Payson book of accounts . ... if the particulars provided for are eare'iilly and regularly entered up there should'be no difficulty in comnilina from them a return of income satisfactory to the department.”