Wairarapa Daily Times. [Established 1874.] WEDNESDAY, MAY 29, 1895. INCOME TAX RETURNS.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume XVI, Issue 5037, 29 May 1895, Page 2

Wairarapa Daily Times. [Established 1874.] WEDNESDAY, MAY 29, 1895. INCOME TAX RETURNS.

'ill: Eri'itinti Pod has published ioro than one article to comfort the niblic respecting the now income ax returns. Our contemporary gives he departmental aspect of the dilliulty, and we may say lit once (lint re admit that IheActisinlelligetitly ,nd ctliciently administered by its lermnnent head, ami that our objectoiis are in the main to the measure Iself.which is unsnited to a Colonial oinnmnity at our present stage of Icvclopmcnt, The shoe pinclics.tlie icople feel the pinch, and it. is little to them to be assured by iven such an eminent authority as he Eteuina Post that the shoo is veil made, lits beautifully, and canlot cause any discomfort to (lie roarer. J t lias created and is crea tng a good deal of discomforl imongst taxpayers, and il is as easy ,o explain a toothache away as it is .0 show that filling in the new •eturns, under the Income Tax Act s a pleasing experience. The argunent of the depaitmcnt is that "Nc jusiness man need experience an\ liilicully in making them up froii i properly prepared profit and loss recount," and this, as far as it goes is a fair statement, But nine onto ten people engaged in trade in thii Uulony are not business men, in tin strict sense of the word, tliey an not trained accountants, and fheydi not produce properly prepared proli and loss accounts, such as ivouh satisfy the requirements of Inconn Tax exports. This is where the slio pinches, and we consider it to be th duty of a public journalist to (ak the part of the nine honest wel meaning tradesmen, though they d not liappan tobctrained accountants rather than that of the tenth, t \vhom the process of tilling in th new schedule may bo comparative]; easy. To illustrate the difficult; experienced in dealing with the nei schedule we will take one iten that of book debts. A man hai say, a thousand pounds' wort of debts on his books, and in makin up his balance sheet, says the cas value of them is £BOO, But th Income Tax Department steps i and says, by the rules of book keeping and bv the regulations a accountants, your book debts mus be put down in the Schedule, a their face value, a thousand poundf On this ono item alone, there is a; enormous discrepancy betweon th estimate of the average tradesinar and the demand of the Department Both are right in their way, th Department from tho soientifi standpoint, and the tradesma; from his own practical nil of thumb point of view, I the average tradesman capable o being educated up to the soientifi standard of the Department, am ought he to bo compelled to koo] his books by the rules of professions

accountants? It is unreasonable to expect this, and almost impossible to compel it! Tko Department must either tako the returns which tradesmen give according to their own ideas and methods, or makeup their balance sheets for them; a little task which would fill up the time of every unemployed clerk in the Colony. In our own case, we claim to possess a fair goneral business : knowledge, but when we attempted ; to fill in the new Schedule of the , Department, we found an almost insuperable difficulty. Had we been i trained as an accountant, and kept our books as expert accountants keep them, we could no doubt have filled in the Schedule, but we were , compelled to plead honest inability. We have scores of neighbours who probably possess less business aptitude and experience than we do ourselves, and if we ask, is it reasonable (o expect such men to comply with the demands of the Department, , we unhesitatingly reply, "No!" Chambers of Commerce have objocted to the new Schedules, but the . objection of country tradesmen, who do not and cannot possibly possess the export knowledge of members of such Chambers, is a much stronger argument against them.