CO129-582-7 Taxation 6-6-1939 - 5-2-1940 — Page 129

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authorities in London will provide exchange for 11 legitimate

urposes and sterling transactions in Hong Kong itself are

completely unrestricted. .

The Secretary of State for the Colonies has also

agreed that it would be unwise to impose in Hong Kong a full

system of licensing of imports and exports. Search has

therefore been made for other means of checking undesirablo

imports, that is, imports which are undesirable because they

usc up oxchange resources. The conclusion has been reached

that this can best be done in two ways, first by the imposition

of taxation with the deliberate object of checking consumption.

with that end we propose to double the tax on petrol and foreign

wines and spirits and, since consumption of luxuries, even from

sterling sources, is to be discouraged, Government proposes to

increase the duties on Empire wines and spirits by 25%. In

considering the petrol taxation I hope that members will koog

prominently in mind that the authorities in the United Kingdom

have taken the very much more drastic step of direct rationing

of private users, granting them sufficient supplies for a

mileage of 2,000 miles à jour. The measures we propose are

very mild compared with that, just as in everything, elso,

taxation and control, the Hong Kong citizen is being treated

less severely than the United Kingdom resident. It is not

desired that the increased tax on petrol should hit the

commercial users, that is the buses and lorries; therefore the

tax on diesel oil used by the buses and some lorries will not

be increased and, as some offset to the additional burden on

petrol-driven lorries, the annual licence fee on such lorries

will be reduced to a nominal charge of 5 representing in each

casc a saving of from 85 to 115 per annum. Vehicles which

have already paid licence fees for this year will be eligible

for proportionate refund as from the 1st October.

No similar