SALES TAX YIELD

Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune, Issue 153, 16 July 1937, Page 5

SALES TAX YIELD

-Own Correspondent.)

Marker Recent Increases A RECORD IN MAY

(By Telegraph-

WELLINGTON, Last Night. Improvement in internal business conditions in New Zealand is fully reliected in the steadily increasing buoyancy of the saies tax yield. Collec- • tions during May established a record of £309,796, although the yields in the mid-year months are not usually the highest. The May yield was £14,714 h-.gher than in April and £76,303 above that for May, 1936. For several month,s past returns from this tax have been exceptionally buoyant, the figures for each of thfc first five months of this year being considerably m advance of the corresponding months last year. This trend is indicative of a higher volume of saies of commodities. Certain necessities are exempted from the tax, and it is reasonable to expect that, with an increase in purchasing power, a higher proportion of total saies would comprise taxabie commodities, including luxury lines. The following table compares the eollections for the first five toonths of the past two years: —

As an jnstance o> tlie increasing value of the tax to t&e Gonsolidated I'lind, collections for the first two months of the current financial year tot^Sled £604,878, an increase of £i3 6,894, or almost 30 per cent. over the amount collected in the correspondmg period of the previous year. If the rate of increase is maintained the yield for the full financial year should easily exceed last year's total of ££3,050,985, the highest since the tax was imposed in February, 1933.

1936 1937 £ £ January .... 233,103 294,431 February •• 186,875 194,624 March .. 206,101 296,337 April 234,491 295,082 May 233,493 309,796* •Record.