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Way
16. When Commonwealth Preference Tax on new motor
vehicles was abolished in December 1975, we put all
private cars on to First Registration Tax at a flat
rate of 30%. Not for transport policy reasons, I think
there is a good case for differentiating "standard" from
"luxury" cars by hitting the latter much harder. The
present system is far too regressive and a token attack
on the "rich" might be no bad political thing.
17. Finally, and this is my only really important proposal,
I am afraid it is time we grasped the nettle and abolished
stamp duties on all documents other than those concerned
with transactions in shares and marketable securities and
assignments of fixed property, at a cost to the revenue of
$120 million. The Stamp Ordinance is a relic of another
commercial day and age and, even if reform could fit it
to modern commercial practices, I doubt whether we should
try. The Ordinance is rapidly becoming unenforceable,
particularly in the foreign exchange field, and is causing
much irritation. Elsewhere (eg the UK) duties on many
documents have long since been abolished. Of the revenue
loss of $120 million (= 23% of the estimate of revenue
from stamp duties in 1978-79) rather more than half would
be saved by the financial community as such. So I
propose (without much logic) that this should be clawed
back by another % on Corporation Profits Tax. The
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/ Commissioner