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SUMMARY OF MAIN CONCLUSIONS.
The terms of reference of the Committee were:-
to consider and report what methods of taxation could
best be adopted for the Colony, should it be necessary to
raise additional revenue, having regard to the Colony's
general economic position and the importance of distrib-
uting any additional burden in the most equitable manner
in relation to the incidence of existing taxation.
The Appendix summarises the principal classes
of revenue in Hong Kong, and broadly speaking taxation
in the strict sense is confined to:
(1) Duties on imports (20.2 per cent).
(2) Rates, (17.6 per cent).
(3)
Various estate, stamp, betting and entertainment
duties, (12.5 per cent).
By no means all the present sources of revenue
are susceptible to any deliberate increases; thus land
sales and rents are determined principally by commercial
demand. Furthermore the Committee were guided by the
view that it would be inadvisable to add to existing
forms of taxation a multiplicity of new forms which
would be irritating and harmful to the freedom of
business and trade.
they
The Report first set out certain proposals
for new impositions or for the increase of existing
taxes which the Committee considered and rejected;
then list a number of increases which they do recommend
and which, although individually small, may agregate
to a considerable sum, and finally they discuss
certain measures not one of which they considera
capable of producing substantial extra revenue.
I.