When is a tax not a tax?

THE headline says it all: “Labor pushes ahead with its unfair Schools Tax” (Sentinel-Times 12 June). It is not only misleading, there is no schools tax, but it is so obviously biased that I thought at first it must be a parody or satire of some sort.

Unfortunately, not. It appears it was a genuine article. I can understand this sort of content in the letters section or as an editorial, but as a news item … really?

While I express no view about the merit or otherwise of payroll tax exemptions for non-government schools (the subject of the article), what I do ask for is some balance in reporting.

We have only one local paper for much of the area covered by the Sentinel-Times.

In a world full of division, is it too much to expect that paper to inform, rather than to mislead and try to persuade readers to what is, presumably, the editor’s particular political view?

Michael Nugent, Cape Paterson

Editor: As you rightly say, the “schools’ tax” heading refers to claims the State Government is preparing to remove the long-standing payroll tax exemption from non-government schools, allegedly costing them thousands of dollars annually. It should have been disclosed that this issue was highlighted to us in a statement by the Liberal Party. But it raises an important point, nonetheless. As our education model stands at the moment, we need the non-government schools’ sector for a couple of key reasons, one being the government (taxpayers) simply can’t afford the cost of universal education. So, these schools need to remain viable and if they are losing money on payroll tax, they have to get it from somewhere else or cut services to the kids. As a card-carrying member of the Greens, you might like to ask your representatives in parliament how that’s going to work, especially for poorly resourced independent and local Catholic schools.