AGGREGATE INCOME.

Evening Post, Volume CXII, Issue 57, 4 September 1926, Page 18

AGGREGATE INCOME.

In addition, licensing and registration fea« return about £300,000 per annum and the primage duty on petrol about £15,000. This gives an aggregate income of approximately £1,510,----000 for 1925. Take the items of £698,719 and '£196,352 representing the duty and body tax on lorries, buses, vans, and motor-cars. This aggregate sum of £ 895,071, represented the receipts from 22,326 vehicles of which over 18,000 were motor-cars. On the basis of 22,326 vehicles, the average combined duty and body tax per vehicle last year was therefore about £40. The average per motor-car is probably below this figure, since the total includes expensive lorries and buses. Excluding motorcycles, it may be assumed that about 90,000 vehicles were in service, the tire supply for which accounted for £198,----406 in duty, or less than £2 5s per vehicle. Tho fact now remains that the average vehicle returns £40 in <iuty, £2 5s a year in tire duty, and £2 in. license fees. If the duty is to be extended over sovtSn years the annual contribution is then just under [£,5 15s. To this add £2 5s tiro tax, '£2 license fee, and 5s driver's license —a total of £10 5s per vehicle a year, as against the inflated instance of £23 15s. No doubt the motorist who covers 20,000 or 30,000 miles yearly will contribute much more than £2 5s in ,tire tax. If the import duty is ignored. the motorist merely contributes an average of £4 10s. In debiting the unfortunate owner of a £200 car with an annual contribution of £23 15s the Southern correspondent does not consider the position of a British car costing £200. The 10 per cent, duty would return £20 and the body tax £10. Consider also the case of Canadian cars which constitute onethird of New Zealand's imports.