HONG KONG LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL
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England attempting, in the eleventh month of the fifth year of its term of office, to foist upon the nation, shall we say, for example, the nationalization of the motor car industry-a matter not crying for such urgency as its tackling by a Government about to go out of office.
These, Sir, are the reasons why I shall vote against this Bill, and on the Bill itself I have no comments to make today except this; I see that it is now proposed, as the result of representations, to include allowances free of tax for a fifth child and subsequent children. The fact that the Taxation Committee or the Committee appointed to consider this Bill should have seen fit to recommend that in those cases the allowance be only $200 per child is, I think, to characterize this amendment as a ludicrous sop, and one which is calculated rather to give offence than satisfaction.
HON. MR. R. D. GILLESPIE.-Your Excellency, I have already made my position clear, at the Annual Meeting of the Chamber of Commerce, with regard to the Bill now before the Council. Therefore it will not be necessary for me to address Honourable Members at any length in this debate.
A measure of this kind cannot be applied with perfect equity to the circumstances of every tax-payer, but I am of opinion that the amendments made since it was first published remove most of the objections which have been expressed.
One alternative suggested and mentioned just now by the Hon. Mr. T. N. Chau, is a Business Licence registration fee. This, as Your Excellency knows, was considered by the Taxation Committee. and regarded as a useful proposal. It would certainly help to provide basic information required by the Inland Revenue Department by bringing into existence a register of firms. But it would not produce substantial revenue, unless it were graduated according to the financial strength of the firms included in its scope. If a registration fee, the same for all firms, is proposed, it would have to be a nominal sum, such as $100. Graduation according to financial strength will be better achieved by the present measure, which has the great advantage that firms which have made losses instead of profits will pay nothing.
I confess to misgivings as to whether the Government has an adequate staff to operate the present Bill in the current financial year. If the Department is overwhelmed with work, the tendency will be to collect from the obvious, easily reached tax-payers, and let a great number of the smaller ones escape, from sheer inability to cope with the numbers. Complaints of inequitable taxation would then be
unanswerable.
I wish to take this opportunity of stating that I do not for a moment suggest that any one section of the community is likely to be less scrupulous than another in the matter of making returns for the purpose of taxation. But it has to be remembered that many here are unaccustomed to this method of raising revenue. Chinese accounts will cause the Department much trouble and delay.
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