2o /. E. Le Rossignol and I V. D. Stewart 



£ 1,000; and a person having an income of £2,300 would pay 2.5 

 per cent on the first £1,000 and 5 per cent on the second £1,000. 

 Companies enjoy no exemptions, and their incomes are taxed at 

 the rate of is. in the pound, but friendly societies, building soci- 

 eties, savings banks, cooperative dairy companies, and charitable 

 and educational institutions are wholly exempted from the income 

 tax. No distinction is made between incomes derived from prop- 

 erty and those derived from earnings. 



The department is very strict in the administration of the tax, 

 using an elaborate system of inspection and investigation and 

 inflicting penalties for incorrect or fraudulent returns, so that 

 there is very little concealment of incomes derived from invest- 

 ments in New Zealand. The tax on incomes from investments 

 abroad could be more easily evaded. The yield of the income 

 tax for the year 1907-8 was £304,905 ($1,500,000). 



Farmers complain that they are taxed more heavily than mer- 

 chants and professional men, but, in view of the large profits 

 which they have gained in recent years, and the great increase in 

 the value of their land, they do not seem to have any serious 

 grievance. Besides, although the land tax, when first imposed, 

 may have been a considerable burden, later purchasers, allowing 

 for the capital value of the tax, have paid less for the land than 

 they would have paid if there had been no tax, and thus, in a 

 sense, they pay no tax at all on the profits of farming. Again, 

 profits in all kinds of business tend to equality, and no class of 

 people except landowners can derive a permanent benefit from 

 exemption from taxation. Also, the small farmers, as well as 

 the small shopkeepers and all other people of small means, are 

 wholly exempted from the land and income tax, which is paid 

 altogether by the more well-to-do people, and of these the more 

 wealthy pay the greater part of the taxes. The land tax, there- 

 fore, is quite different from the single tax proposed by Henry 

 George, who would have society appropriate the whole rent of 

 land, whether owned by large or small proprietors. 



The success of the small proprietors in getting rid of the bur- 

 den of taxes by substituting the land and income tax for the hated 

 property tax was truly remarkable. In the year 1889 the num- 



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