NOTE HOARDING

Wairarapa Times-Age, 28 October 1943, Page 3

NOTE HOARDING

PRACTISED ON GREAT SCALE IN AUSTRALIA AS MEANS OF EVADING TAXATION (By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright) SYDNEY, October 27. Bank note hoarders in Australia are believed to be evading taxation and dealing extensively on the black market. To prevent hoarding the Federal Government may change the note issue. All the notes would then have to be surrendered within a given period and those not surrendered would become valueless. One difficulty, however, is that when the new notes were issued hoarding would begin again and another “cleanup" would be necessary within a year or so. It is estimated that nearly £70,000,000 of the present Australian note issue is being hoarded or used for undisclosed transactions. Taxation officials believe that many £lOO notes change hands in betting commissions, records of which are not kept. These officials declare that taxation evasion is on a much greater scale than it was previously. The Australian public now holds £133.000,000 in notes, or £98,000,000 more than in August,' 1939.

Holdings by banks have increased by only £2,000,000, to £15,000,000. In April Britain called in notes of high denominations in exchange for £1 and 10s issues.