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FINANCIAL STRUCTURE
types of entertainment given for charitable or educational purposes are taxed at a lower rate or may be exempt. Public Dance Halls Tax exacts a levy of 10 per cent on all dance hall charges. Bets and Sweeps Tax imposes 71 per cent on totalizator receipts and 25 per cent on cash sweepstake receipts.
The Hotel Accommodation Tax, introduced in July, 1966, provides money for the organization of tourism. The rate is two per cent of the charge made for accommodation by the proprietor of any hotel containing 10 or more rooms normally available for guests. This levy is estimated to yield $2.2 million in the current
year.
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Every business carried on in the Colony, except one which is not carried on for the purpose of gain or one which is carried on by a charitable institution, must be registered and pay an annual registration fee of $25. Where the business is very small the Com- missioner may exempt it. These fees are expected to yield approx- imately $3.2 million.
CURRENCY
When Hong Kong was founded in 1841, China's currency was based on uncoined silver. The normal unit for foreign trade throughout the Far East was the Spanish or Mexican silver dollar. By a proclamation of 1842, Mexican or ‘other Republican dollars' were declared to be legal tender in the Colony although government accounts were kept in sterling until 1862. There were several unsuccessful attempts to change the monetary basis from silver to gold.
A mint was set up in 1866 and produced a Hong Kong equivalent of the Mexican dollar, but the new coin was unpopular and the mint closed down two years later. (The machinery was later sold to establish the first modern mint in Japan.)
An Order of the Queen in Council, dated February 2, 1895, authorized the minting in India of a British trade dollar, equivalent to the Mexican dollar. In Hong Kong this gradually replaced the Mexican dollar although the latter still remained both legal tender and the standard by which other dollars were judged. The sterling or gold value of the dollar varied with the price of silver. This