TAXATION.

Temuka Leader, Issue 2203, 19 May 1891, Page 2

TAXATION.

The Government hav* announced their determination to change the incidence of taxation. . We are not surprised at this. Almost all their own supporters, as well as a good many of their opponents, are pledged to abolish the property tax. There is no other question on which so large a majority of the people are united, and as Governments, after all, are merely the executive of the public will it is not surprising that the change has been attempted. The change, it is said, will take the form of abolishing the property tax and ef substituting a land and income tax, The unimproved value of the land enly will be taxed, and even of that £SOO worth will be exempt from taxation. In that case a great many small farmers will in future pay no taxation at all. Take for instance a farm of 200 acres valued at £« an acre, total £I2OO. It ii generally believed that half that sum is made up of improvements, and thus the taxation would orly fall on £6OO of it, Then the £SOO exemption would be deducted, thus leaving only £IOO to be taxed. Then incomes are to be taxed at the rate of sixpence in the £, but no one wbo is not in receipt of over £3OO a year will be touched. This is the programme put forth, but it appears to us too good to be true. If the Government can pay their way under such circumstances without inflicting punitive taxation on large estates we promise them that monuments will be raised to their memory as the best financiers New Zealand has bo far seen. It is no use speculating on this until the whole f nanoial scheme of the Government is before us, and that we presume will not be until the Colonial Treasurer delivers his financial statement when Parliament meets next month. All we desire te say is that we sincerely trust they will take care to have plenty of revenue, because the average elector has no conception of the difference between surplus and a deficit. In his opinion the country is going to the bad when there is a deficit, and everything as right whea there is a surplus. This is a mistaken notion altogether. This ceintry might be prosperous, and yet there might be a deficit, and vice.versa The Colonial Treasurer who has a |

deficit hat not taxed tbe people enough, but if he has a eurplus it means that ho taxed them too much. The man who could so guage thinge that he would not have a penny over or ander would be a perfect Treaaurer. The people never blame a Treaaurer who has taken too much, they applaud him for having a surplus, but if he happens to hare a deficit he ia in hot water at onoe.'" They never think that the reaeon he haa not enoigh revenue ia because he allowed the money to remain in their pockets iuatead of extracting it from them. We aincerely hope that whatever elee the Government will do' they will have a surplus, but if the programme is to be aa it haa been sketched we are inclined to believe that they will not be able to pay their way.