TAXES COMPARED

Wairarapa Times-Age, 4 October 1941, Page 5

TAXES COMPARED

RATES IN NEW ZEALAND & AUSTRALIA MR. FADDEN’S .STATEMENT CHALLENGED. STATE FIGURES NOT INCLUDED. CANBERRA, October 3. In his speech in the Budget debate in the House of Representatives last night, the Prime Minister. Mr. Fadden said it could not be denied that the Budget was a wage-earner’s Budget if it was compared with that of New Zealand. "The 1940 New Zealand Budget included a National Security Tax of Is. in the pound on all incomes, without exemption,” he said. "Let us compare that National Security Tax with our own scheme. “If we had a tax of a shilling in the pound on all incomes we would get £28,000,000 from the lower incomes. The £10,000,000 raised in New Zealand by the National Security Tax was hot a loan; it was a straight out tax. “The Federal Government has instituted a compulsory loan to alleviate as much as possible the burden of taxation,” Mr Fadden said. “We recognise that to get the money for this war from taxation might be disastrous.” The Deputy-Leader of the Opposition, Mr Forde, replying to Mr Fadden, said that the Prime Minister, in comparing Federal taxation with that of New Zealand, had not given Australian .taxation but had quoted Federal taxrates only. Federal and State taxation together would far exceed that of New Zealand. Mf Forde charged the Government with not making sufficient use of the Commonwealth Bank for war work and reproductive work. He condemned compulsory loans and said that these had been jettisoned by New Zealand.