HONG KONG LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL.
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Your Excellency will yourself be dealing with the more important questions that have been raised, but there are a number of criticisms in detail which can be answered simply and of which it is desirable first to dispose.
Explanatory Notes.
The absence of the Explanatory notes in the Revenue Estimates is regretted. They had all appeared in the original Treasury draft, but for the most part they are self-evident, and are merely short references to the Treasury Memorandum on Revenue with its fuller explanations and that is already in Honourable members' hands. That memo is itself something of a new departure, considered to be more helpful than the missing notes. They read in this way:
CLASS 1.
Head I.
Light Dues
Increase in scale.
Head II.
Amusement Tax.
Assessed Taxes
Carriage, Chair, &c.,
Licences.
Forfeitures.
Motor Spirit Duties
Stamp Duties
Tobacco Duties
New Tax.
4% increase in rates.
Transferred to Vehicle
Licences.
Based on latest returns. Overestimated for 1930.
New Tax.
Increased taxation. Includ-
ing increased Duties.
Estate
Increased taxation. Includ- ing increased Estate Duties.
but the note to the last item will form the reply to one of the queries that has been raised. Other Miscellaneous Receipts, which show a reduction of $150,000 carry the note "overestimated in 1930 and less profit on Exchange." The omission will be duly rectified next year.
Attention has very properly been drawn by the Senior Unofficial Member to the absence of the usual detailed Abstract of Differences between the Estimates of the current and of the coming year, and I can only apologise for the omission. The paper is one of
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