NEW TAXES IN IRELAND.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVIII, Issue 20902, 18 June 1931, Page 12

NEW TAXES IN IRELAND.

PETROL AND SUGAR TO PAY.

GIFT OF £750,000 TO FARMERS.

Numerous changes - were made in the Irish Free State Budget introduced in the Dail on May 7 by the Minister of Finance. The Minister indicated that were it not for the 'necessity of providing relief for farmers the existing rate of taxation would have sufficed-and would have provided a small surplus, but the Government, having decided to vote £750,000 in relief of rates on agricultural land, fresh sources of revenue had to be found.

The new sources of taxation are mainly: —A tax of 4d a gallon on petrol. (Up to the present there has been no" tax on petrol in the Free State.)- An additional tax of a halfpenny a "pound on sugar. The yield of taxation shows a small"' excess over the estimate, and there has also -been si small Surplus of revenue over- normal expenditure. Other tax changes aro-aS/fol-lows:—Tie remission, of .the tax on racecoure betting; death duties to be brought up to the British scalecustoms duty on sound films to bo increased from'- : one penny to threepence-per linear foot; a remission of ; the tax on entertainments, consisting mainly .of- performances by artists personally present; capital duty payable by companies on their formation to be reduced from 20s to 5s per cent.