THE TAXATION BILL.

Taranaki Daily News, 11 October 1922, Page 7

THE TAXATION BILL.

ITS SECOND READING,

(From Cur Own Correspondent.) Wellington, October 2.

It is not expected that the Land and Income Tax Bill will encounter any very formidable opposition when it comes up for its second reading in the House of Representatives this week. The members of the Labour Party probably will reiterate the criticism they offered on the introduction of the Bill, and the Liberals, as in duty bound, doubtless will deplore again that better counsels did not prevail at the Treasury; but, to Mr. Massey’s great good luck, there is no one on the Opposition side of the House in these days that can speak with facility and authority of State finances. From the public point of view it is extremely unfortunate that Parliament should have lost at one fell swoop, as it were, three such financial experts as Sir Joseph Ward, Sir James Allen and the Hon. Arthur Myers, and that in this time of unparalleled difficulty Sir Francis Bell should not be at the elbow of the Prime Minister. It is admitted on all sides, even -by the people who are pinning their faith to Mr. Massey, that no previous House has been so poorly equipped to deal with great financial problems as is the expiring one. BUSINESS MAN’S VIEWS. Though quite a number of commercial bodies and farmers’ organisations have expressed approval and appreciation of the Taxation Bill as an earnest of the desire of the Government to lighten the enormous burdens the business community and the producers are bearing at the present time, very few of them regard the present proposals as in any way commensurate with the needs of the situation. A business man, with big interests all over the Dominion, discussing the position to-day, said it was just a question how long companies and firms could hold on under the present crushing load of taxation. Many of them were already hopelessly involved. They had struggled along, buoyed up by their own optimism and the optimism of the Prime Minister, till they had reached ft point at which liquidation offered the only escape from their accumulated ; troubles. Stronger firms that had been carrying on numbers of farmers, under conditions that were advantageous to both sides, now were compelled to close accounts that had been running for years, simply because they could not get the accommodation they required themselves to continue this class of business. To j save themselves they had to push the ■ farmers to the wall. COMPANY TAXATION. The manager of a large limited iia- j bility company, that for half a century ■ and more has rendered signal service to . the producing interests, of the country,' had a similar story to tell. A of the maximum income tax from 8, J in the pound to 7/4, he said, was going to help the producers and the workers to some extent, but it was going to be oi very little assistance to the companies or to small shareholders who were dragged under the operation of the maximum tax directly they invested a ten pound note in shares. He did not wish to belittle Mr. Massey’s financial ability, which presumably was the best to be found in Parliament; but he could not i help thinking that if the Prime Minister | had made an unbiassed study of the systems of company taxation followed ; by other countries he would have seen his way to avoid gravely embarrassing many of the most useful business institutions in the Dominion. The published statements in regard to the posi- • tion of the co-operative trading concerns showed what was happening all over the country, and a concession of 1/5 in the pound on the maximum income tax was not going to save the situation. THE BANKERS. The bankers, who have been blamed for many of the evils arising from excessive taxation, carefully eschew poll- ' tics. They are wedded to their business and Governments come and go without occasioning them any personal emotion. But at the present time they are very gravely perturbed by the manner in which the demands of the State are affecting their own business and the businesses of their clients. One of them, referring this morning to the popular idea that the banks were coining money out of the embarrassments of the Government and the public, said that as a matter of fact the State taxation the banks paid in New Zealand was five or six times higher than the taxation they paid in other countries in which they did business, chiefly Australia and England. More than this, the Dominion Government, in its necessities, was employing many devices to divert capital from the banks, and so lessening their ability to help business men and producers who in these times stood sadly in need of assistance. In these circumstances to blame the banks for what was happening appeared to be flagrantly ungenerous.