No.30959/1909.
Six,
COPY.
Colonial Office to the Treasury.
340
24th November, 1909.
With reference to the letter from this Department
of the 26th of August, I am directed by the Earl of Crewe to transmit to you to be laid before the Lords Commissioners of His Majesty's Treasury, the accompanying copy of a letter from the Audit Office with regard to certain refunds of revenue in Hongkong. A copy of the
paragraph of the Local Auditor's report, to which
reference is made, is also enclosed.
2.
It is proposed to inform the Comptrollerand
Auditor General that his Lordship is advised that the
expression "gross receipts" in Section 3 of Ordinance
1 of 1901, was not intended to include overpayments,
wrongly received by the Government of Hongkong and
subsequently refunded, which in the ordinary method of
accounting approved by the Comptroller and Auditor
General would not be included in the gross return of
revenue shown in the annual estimate.
3. "Gross receipts" in the ordinance means as
his Lordship understands it, gross receipts without
deduction of the cost of collection or of expenditure
necessitated in consideration of those receipts.
For
example, the revenue derived from the Postal Department
is to be shown in full without any deduction for postal
expenditure. But it can scarcely be contended that the
Colony was ever intended to pay Military Contribution
made
on an overpayment by mistake, which does not belong to
the