DEAD HORSES

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Volume 58, Issue 246, 18 November 1929, Page 6

DEAD HORSES

Eeaders of the reports of the Budget debate must have been impressed with the energy with which dead liorses were tiogged, with which propositions accepted fuliy by alL reasonable men were eraphasised again and again. Two instances may be adduced to illustrate this. One was in connection with primage duties. Everybody knows that these are nassed on to

Ihe consumer, with profits 011 tasation added. Even those who pretend to be sincex-e and to believe in their own contentions that primage duties are not passed on are consciously insincei'e. All forms of Customs taxation are passed on, inevitably so, and passed on with at least one profit added, in the majority of cases two profits added, and in many cases three profits added, those of the importer and the middleman and the retailer. The cost to an. importer of the goods he buys abroad is what they cost him landed plus Customs duties, and on that total he fixes liis profit. So with the middleman and so with the retailer. Before the transaction is completed the consumer pays at least double what the Government collects via the Customs. If we call some of these duties "primage" the result is exactly the same. Nothing of this is arguable. All of it is inevitable. Then again — although in this case perhaps reiteration is more pavdonable — there is not a reasonably informed man or woman in tbie country who does not know that for many years the large landowning class has escaped taxation paid by other and less fortunately circumstanced classes. Assuming that an income tax must be paid, it ought to be an income tax — that is, above the limit of a reasonable exemption for smallness of income, all incomes should be levied upon. Yet for years incomes derived from the use of land were exempt, while the incomes of artisans and clerks and professional men were taxed. We do not dwell upon the case of the business man, for income tax is one of his overhead charges, and is passed on to the consumer. As a consumer the business man pays, but in his capacity as a trader either passes it on or becomes insolvent. All this is but mere platitude, is unchallengeable, yet all through the Budget debate speaker after speaker thought it necessary to solemnly declare that primage duties are passed on and that wealthy landowners have been escaping taxation extorted from the industrial and professional classes. We cannot blame them. There are two poles. There are two halves to every whole. This is the complement of that. Practically those who have felt impelled to, utter truisms in this matter, to declare that all forms of Customs taxation are passed on with profits charged up on that taxation, and that wealthy landowners have been escaping taxation wrung from less happily placed members of the community, have been driven to that platitudinarian stand because otbers have asserted the contrary. Incredible as it may seem to some, there are in the House those who deny that Customs duties if called primage are passed on, and deny that discrimination is shown when the incomes earned by artisans and professional men are taxed and those derived from the cultivation of land are exempted. We may wonder at the pertinacity of those who will persist in enforcing the obvious — that primage duties are passed on and that an income tax which is only a tax upon some incomes is unjust — but what are we to think of those who deny these things We rnav discount their intellect to. admit the possibility of their integritv, or vice versa, but it is impossible to credit them with integrity and intellect. If it be retorted to this that we are rude, are charging them with being either knaves or fools — well, our withers are unwrung. It is something very like that we do mean. Unfortunately the trade of flogging dead horses is a necessary one. Take an instance. In regard to income tax, the exemption for incomes earned in business or by labour is £300, but the exemption for incomes earned by the cultivation of land has hitherto extended to the whole of sucli incomes. They have paid exactly nothing. This is unjust. To say so is to metaphoricallv flog a dead horse, to preach the obvious, vet it is necessary to do this because intriguers' wlio may be wise or wbo may be honest, but cannot be both, continue to deny Ihe injustice. What folly it seems l.o persist in declaring that all forms | of Customs duties are passed on, j even if called primage, or that an income tax which is only a tax on some incomes is unjust, yet in view I of intcrested clamour to Ihe c-nn-i trarv there was never 'a time when it was rnoro necessary to so persist. Speaking satirically, it may

be said that it is flogging a dead horse to say that what the country needs is justice in the matter of taxation, yet practically never was there greater need for reiteration of this.