CUSTOMS

Taranaki Daily News, 6 January 1922, Page 6

CUSTOMS

INSTRUCTIVE FIGURES. WILL YEAR’S ESTIMATE BE REALISED? EFFECT OF NEW TARIFF BILL. The estimated Customs revenue for the financial year 1921-22 was £4,900,000, while the revenue actually received during the first nine months of the year totalled £3,920,332, leaving, in round figures, a million pounds to get in during the last qaurter, as compared with an average of over £1,300,000 for each of the first three quarters. it is considered in well-informed quarters, how’ever, that this average not likely to be maintained by the revenue of the next three months in view of the very large quantity of spirits taken out of bond prior to the bringing down of the Tariff Bill. Very little revenue can be expected from spirits for some months to come, as it is estimated that no less than an eighteen months’ or a two years’ supply was thus released from bond. A BIG FALLING-OFF. The amount of Customs revenue collected during the calendar year 1921 was £5,728,955, as compared with £B,033,342 for the previous calendar year, easily a Dominion record. For 1919, comparatively a normal year, the Customs revenue totalled £4,530,094, and for 1918 it was £3,000,853. It is noteworthy that for the first nine months of the current financial year the Customs revenue was a quarter rof a million above the estimate for that period. .Since 1914 the amounts of Customs revenue received during the month of December and for the first nine months in each financial year respectively, compare as under:

The new Customs tariff, of course, has not yet been in operation long enough for its effect upon the .revenue to be predicted with any great certainty. BEER DUTY. REVENUE UNDER THE ESTIMATE. The revenue received to date from the beer duty is under the estimate. For the nine months the estimated revenue from beer duty was £375,000, but the revenue has fallen short of that by some £77, 000. For the whole year the estimate was £500,000. For the first nine months of 1920-21 the beer, duty revenue was £204,505, and for the corresponding period of 1919-20 it was £256,321. Owing to the increased duty—it was practically doubled —the beer duty revenue for November and DecernWr last was, roughly, £50,000 per month, as against £21,000 to £29,000 per month during the earlier pare of the year. The minimum rate of beer duty was previously 5%d and the maximum 6d per gallon. By the Tariff Bill the minimum was raised to lljd, increasing by l-16d for every unit of specific gravity above 1047; so that for stout it may run up to Is Id. . For the calendar year 1921, the beer duty yielded £393,953, as compared with £363,596 for 1920 and £337,811 for 1919.

Month of December. First Nine Months, 1914 249.485 2,427,854 1915 288.192 2.460,081 191-6 21 8.292 2,927,196 1917 27'8.680 2,459,724 1918 230,319 2,696,405 1919 328.277 3.395,201 1920 010,503 6.598,5GS 1921 338,321 3,926,332