545

A.—s

Sir WILLIAM LYNE : Do I understand that the practice is that supposing a company is registered in another part of the world with persons living here, deriving income from that company, you tax that income ? Mr. ASQUITH : If they live here. Sir JOSEPH WARD :We all do the same. What we want to try to get is a mutual arrangement that one shall abandon the imposition at one end and the other at the other. We all do the same absolutely. Sir WILLIAM LYNE : Then I think we ought to put on an overtax. The British Government stopped me when I wanted to do something of the kind once. Sir JOSEPH WARD : If there is. a shareholder in a British Company carrying on operations here entirely, and he is living in New Zealand and gets his income out from England to New Zealand, we tax it there. The very same is done by the British Government when a New Zealander is living in England. Mr. ASQUITH : The whole thing is set out in the discussion we had the other day. The considerations on one side and the other are stated with perfect lucidity, and I think it would be a pity to have to go over the ground again. CHAIRMAN : This resolution will be on record, and the proceedings at the Treasury are recorded, which show that the Chancellor of the Exchequer cannot agree. Dr. SMARTT : I understand Mr. Deakin, Sir Joseph Ward, and General Botha have accepted the principles laid down in the resolution already. That is why I would like to have it on record at the Conference that they have accepted it. Sir JOSEPH WARD : If the resolution goes on record with the record of the proceedings of the Committee and the views of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, I think it is just as good as a resolution passed one way or the other. Dr. SMARTT : It is unfortunate that Mr. Moor did not happen to be present at the meeting we had. I know he agrees with the tenour of the resolution, and I thought if we could have got it affirmed here, Mr. Moor, who was not present at the discussion, would be able to vote upon it. Mr. ASQUITH : No doubt all the representatives of South Africa would agree. Mr. F. R. MOOR : We have no income tax in our Colony, but that does not justify the double tax, in my opinion. Mr. ASQUITH : They have in Cape Colony.

F 'teenth Day g May 11107.

Double Income Tax.

70—A. 5