TAXING COMPANIES’- PROFITS.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXXVI, Issue 3434, 11 September 1913, Page 5

TAXING COMPANIES’- PROFITS.

A PROTEST FROM WANGANUI

[PRESS WANGANUI, Sept. 10. At tlie annual meeting of the Wanganui Meat Freezing Company, strong exception was taken to the proposal of the Government to impose a graduated income tax on companies’ profits. The proposal was condemned as iniquitous, as the profits of a freezv > ing company were a fluctuating quanv titv. It was pointed out that in 1909 J the Wanganui Freezing Company made a loss of £15,000, but that in the following year a profit was made. There could be no set-off, btit income tax must be paid on the full amount of that year’s earnings. It was stated that the Minister had been approached on this, and no satisfaction had been obtained. A suggestion was also made that the fairest way to levy income tax was over an average period of five years, but the meeting could not understand why a Parliament containing more farmers than any previous ono should inflict such a tax on the meat freezing industry. The following motion was carried unanimously: “That this meeting enters an emphatic protest against the Government’s proposals to increase the income tax payable by companies, and views such proposals with alarm as a serious clog on industrial progress.” The Wanganui Meat Freezing Co. last year made a profit of £10,811 ; A five per cent dividend, representing £2,500 has been declared, £6OOO carried to the reserve fund, and the balance carried forward. The Company has over £21,000 in cash or on short call deposits, and have reduced the net outside liabilities by £19,600 during the last two years.