Boat tax ‘may be lifted’

Press, 28 October 1981, Page 3

Boat tax ‘may be lifted’

PA Auckland The tax on boats which was introduced two years ago may be. lifted by the Government, according to sources in the boat-building industry. They said that if the tax of 20 per cent was not lifted more boat-building companies were likely to join the 230 firms associated with the marine industry which had either been closed br restructured since the introduction of the tax. Officials of the Customs Department, the Labour Department and the Depart-

ment. of Trade and Industry spent: two days in Auckland recently visiting five boatbuilding companies to assess the effects of the tax. The officials were formed into a committee after a meeting in Auckland in September between the Prime Minister (Mr Muldoon) and a deputation of boat builders led by the president of the Boating and Marine Industries Association, Mr Y. L. Sands. Mr Sands said that he was hopeful of a change in Government pblicy. Figures produced by the

association in July, 1981, showed that an estimated 2000 jobs had disappeared in the industry since the imposition of the tax and that the annual turnover of the industry had dropped from $57 million before the introduction of the tax to $8 million in 1981. In July, the then president of the association, Mr Bill Bridget, said that the Government had anticipated revenue of $lO million annually from the tax but that it was getting only $1.6 million from the industry’s present turnover. .