BETTER POSITION.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIV, Issue 1, 3 January 1933, Page 7

BETTER POSITION.

BRITISH FINANCES. More Revenue, With Less Expenditure. 3ND-OF-YEAR RETURNS. (British Official Wireless.) (Received 1.30 p.m.) RUGBY, January 2. An interesting feature of the nine months' revenue returns published yesterday lies in the increased yield of Customs and excise revenc. Tariffs have introduced new revenue, and so far Customs and excise revenues liavo yielded £29,099,000, as against an estimated yield for this full financial year of £44,000,000. A total of £1,500,000 has been raised from the special duties imposed on Irish Free State imports as a means of collecting the moneys due from the Free State in connection with the land annuities payments withheld by the de Valera Government. Death duties also show the big increase of £8,390,000 over last year's figures, and so far have yielded £55,780, 000, as against an estimated yield for the year ending March 31 of £77,000,000. Income tax yielded £08,581,000. Threequarters of next year's revenue is payable in January. The full year's revenue is estimated at £760,800,000, leaving £302,469,000 to be received by April. The £404.331,000 so far to hand represents an increase of £8,790,300 over the income received at this time last year.

Expenditure, reckoned at £787,431,000 for the twelve months, including sinking fund allocation of £14,391,000. has so far reached £580,044,000. Including the war debt payment of £19,500,000 in gold made to the United States on December 15, which in sterling required £28,956,300, the total of the outgoings is £600,000,000. This gives a deficit on the period of £204,068,000. This compares with an excess of expenditure over revenue in the corresponding period of 1931 of £203,752,903.

As nearly three-fourths of the annual yield of income tax and surtax is received in the March quarter, a large excess of expenditure over revenue is always shown at December 31. Disregarding the sinking fund and war debt payment the ordinary revenue rose during the nine months by £9.790,323, while expenditure receded by £9,207,423.