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with provision for the compulsory registration of business names, including the names of all partners together with their aliases. The original suggestion was that this tax should be linked to the premises occupied for the purpose of conducting the business. In practice, however, this presented very great difficulties when it came to drafting the necessary legislation. A situation could not be contemplated, for example, where a man renting ordinary business premises had to pay the tax, while a man conducting a substantial business from a hotel room escaped. Other difficulties were encountered both in connection with the legislation and the practical administration of the proposed tax. These were not fully resolved until the closing months of the financial year 1950/51, and it was therefore decided to defer the introduction of the necessary legislation until early in the current financial year. The measure is a valuable one in that it should prove of great assistance to the department of Inland Revenue, and should put a stop to the introduction of fictitious partners and other evasive practices. This should in due course be reflected in some increase in the yield from Profits Tax, so that the actual registration fee is only of secondary importance. After further discussion in Executive Council it was decided in order to minimise any possible hardship on small businesses to fix the fee initially at $200 and not $300 per annum, as was originally proposed. Once the necessary machinery is set up it would be a comparatively simple matter to raise the registration fee.
11.
Under pressure from the Chinese Chamber of Commerce, two Unofficial Members in the course of the budget debate, urged not only that this business registration tax should be deferred, but that, in view of the favourable financial position, the standard rate of tax under the Inland Revenue Ordinance should be reduced to its former level of 10 per cent. Both these proposals were rejected and the Financial Secretary pointed out that the harm already done by the American embargo will adversely affect certain sources of revenue in 1952/53, and that in particular we must expect a reduction in the yield from Profits Tax. He explained that it was uncertain how the current financial year would develop, and that there might be a short fall under some revenue Heads. In these circumstances, he contended that it was reasonable to assume that we should require all the revenue which could be collected.
12.
Expenditure as originally provided for in the estimates, totalled $233,465,137, but as a result of the adjustments in Select Committee this figure was increased to $234,669,050, though part of this increase was due to a self-balancing item which had the effect of adding $519,000 to the revenue total. The final expenditure figure of $234,669,050 represents an increase of a little over $334 million over the approved estimate for 1950/51. It of course represents a decrease over the revised estimate figure for that year, as this contained an abnormal item of $50 million in respect of loan advances charged off to expenditure.
13.
The large increase over the approved estimate figure for 1950/51 occurs almost entirely under Other Charges and Special Expenditure, particularly under the latter due to the necessity for a large number of re-votes owing to delays in the execution of orders. There are also some very large provisions which were not included in the