CO129-489 - Governor Sir Stubbs & Sir Clementi - 1925 [8-12] — Page 343

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