The "Overtaxed" Tongan
Readers Communicate Their Views
Typical Tongan’s Taxes To The Editor
The following two letters have been received from readers of The Pacific Islands Monthly in Tonga, and express their views on the subject of the taxation of natives of that group.
The article referred to by the writers appeared in our September issue.
Sir; Since taxation in Tonga forms the basis of your correspondent’s first contribution to your pages, no apology should be needed from one seeking further elucidation.
If the facts are as stated by your corres pondent then, the Tongan is indeed in a very enviable position. He contributes to the Gov ernment an annual sum of £2/14/-, and re ceives, as a “quid pro quo,” land, education and medical attention, and your readers are left to infer that this annual contribution of £2/14/- constitutes the whole burden he has to bear.
If the position—thus briefly summarised — was “fact” there would be no need to invoke either the grace of cocoa, or the saving effi cacy of bananas, to save Tonga. The little country would be, in spite of the low price of copra, in a very prosperous condition.
Balancing The Budget
This mythical Tongan having served your correspondent’s purpose is left with his pigs and poultry, while his creator proceeds to a general review of parliamentary proceedings, and, unfortunately for his “facts,” reveals that the “finalised budget” calls for £85,630 of revenue, and since your correspondent for gets to inform your readers how far this “Typical Tongan’s'’ remittance of £2/14/per annum meets this —for such a small coun
try—exorbitant sum, we endeavour to supply the omission.
The poll tax, which can be more closely esti mated than any other item of revenue is, for the current year, expected to yield £12,000.
This, at 36/- per head, gives about 6,700 tax payers, not all of whom will be contributing land, horse or gun tax, but to not unduly em barrass your correspondent we will assume that they each contribute £2/14/-, which will yield approximately the sum of £ 18,000.
But the Government requires nearly £70,000 in excess of the “Typical Tongan’s” contribu tion. This is real “fact.”
May I ask your correspondent who provides it? He has dismissed his mythical Tongan from the “mise en scene” after accepting his £2/14/-, and cannot very well recall him from his worry over his pigs to worry over a trifling sum of £70,000 I’ve oft heard stories men called “cock-and bull,”
But tales about a Tongan pig and hen Pail to obscure the “fact” I sadly pen— The Tongan’s taxed beyond all human ken.
Yours faithfully,