WHO PAYS THE EXPORT TAX?

Evening Star, Issue 14307, 4 March 1910, Page 7

WHO PAYS THE EXPORT TAX?

Mr George Childerhouse writes thus to the Yorkshire ' Post' : The foreigner in the export tax is, as Mr Wilson eays. the man who buys. In the import tax he is +'■" man who sells. Mr Wilson admits that'the buyer paid the coal tax, and if the buyer paid the coal tax, the buyer in this country who bought the imports would pay the import tax, and the man who 6»nt them in that case would be the foreigner. While in both cases the buver pays, there is this difference : the man who cent the coal out of this country would pay the lfi export duty to the British Government, and would charge it on the invoice he sent.to the foreigner, so that the consumer would ultimately pay it in lhatca.se. In the case of the import tax, the Customs authorities collect the duty from the man in this country who receives the goods. There are two absolute certainties in this question of imports and exports, and these are : The importer pays the Customs duly on imports. The exporter pays the Government toll on exports. And it is upon the consumer that the burden ultimately falls in both cases. Tho coal exporter is also handicapped in competing against the foreign competitor who pays no export lax. If Beaconsfield, Gladstone, liurke, or Peel codd se-2 that Tariff Reform poster, "The foreigner's got my job," I wonder what they would think of the intelligence of twentieth century politicians '!