AMUSEMENT TAX EXEMPTIONS

Press, Volume LXXXIX, Issue 27165, 8 October 1953, Page 12

AMUSEMENT TAX EXEMPTIONS

BILL INTRODUCED IN HOUSE OPERATION NEXT MONTH PROPOSED (From Our Parliamentary Reporter) WELLINGTON, October 7. Amateur sports and entertainments and some professional sports will be exempted from amusement tax after November 1 of this year. In the past, tax has been imposed on all entertainments except those specifically exempted. The Amusement Tax Amendment Bill, introduced in the House of Representatives today, sets out specific types of amusement on which tax will be imposed, and exempts all others.

Those types of entertainment that will be taxed are horse race or dog race meetings; professional boxing or wrestling; any circus or animal rodeo where performers, producers, or managers are paid, not being a rodeo promoted by an agricultural and pastoral society; speedway motor racing, where performers, producers, or managers are paid; motion picture shows, but not lectures illustrated by motion pictures; any stage performance in a theatre or hall where performers, producers, or managers are paid. Exemptions re-enacted in the bill are entertainments of which the proceeds are devoted to charitable, philanthropic, educational, or patriotic purwhere performers, producers, and managers receive no part of the proceeds and expenses are reasonable. This exemption has been widened 1 to apply even where performers are paid, so long as their fees are not met out of the proceeds.

Other entertainments exempted are those promoted by adult educational councils, if the proceeds are devoted to cultural and educational purposes approved by the National Council of Adult Education; plays, ballets, and musical entertainments promoted by certain New Zealand nonprofit societies, if the proceeds are devoted to the society’s objects and expenses are reasonable. In particular, lectures and wholly amateur concerts and all games and sports and field events except those specifically mentioned are to be freed from tax.