PURCHASE TAX

Wairarapa Times-Age, 3 August 1940, Page 3

PURCHASE TAX

DETAILS OF THE BRITISH PROPOSAL. LUXURY & OTHER RATES. iEv Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright; LONDON. August 1. The second Finance Bill of the Chancellor of the Exchequer. Sir Kingsley Wood, containing the proposals of his Budget speech, was published today. The Bill gives details of the scope of the Purchase Tax. There arc to be two rates of lax. j The first will be one-third of the wholesale value of goods which are either luxuries or such that people can avoid buying. The second is onesixth of the wholesale value and will apply to goods of a non-luxury character. The Bill lists goods on which taxes will be levied. The public will pay one-third on carpets, china, furniture, travel goods, musical instruments, wireless sets, clocks, and jewellery. The higher rate will be payable on pipes, clothes, and haberdashery, umbrellas. toys, games, and sports appliances. Business houses will also pay the full rate on typewriters, dictaphones. calculating machines, and even pencils, pens, ink and drawing-pins., The lower rate will apply to clothing and boots and shoes which are not luxuries. Young children's clothing will be entirely exempt. The tax will be levied normally at the point where the goods are sold by the wholesaler to the retailer so that goods for export will be free of tax. Sir Kingsley Wood stated .that revenue estimated from the application of the Purchase Tax in a full year to newspapers and books was between £3,250.000 and £3,500,000 from all newspapers and’ periodicals and between £1.000.000 and £1.250.000 from books.