PROBLEMS OF A PETROL TAX

Evening Post, Volume CXII, Issue 60, 8 September 1926, Page 16

PROBLEMS OF A PETROL TAX

The petrol tax which Mr. Churchill hopes to impose within tho lifetime of the present Parliament may be a more equitable scheme of taxation as between the different classes of the motoring community, but it is not so simple or even so sound as'it appears, states a writer in the "Manchester Guardian Commercial." Tho difficulty which every committee appointed to study this question has so far failed to solve is that of arriving at a working definition of petrol. Just as motor manufacturers "get round" the horse-power tax to a large extent by altering the design of the engine, so the oil refiners might "jet round" the petrol tax by altering the constituents of motor fuel. The point is that a petrol tax may completely upset the present relations between the motor manufacturer and the petrol manufacturer. The tendency would be to produce a less volatile fuel that'escaped the definition of "petrol" and yet could be exploded by compression or otherwise in the internal-com-bustion engine. A "petrol" tax, in other words, might so affect the evolution of the motor engine that transport would be slowed down and costs of transportation would be raised. In the endeavour to be equitable towards taxpayers the danger is to be uneconomical or unfair to the consumer. ,