TAX ON BETTING.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 19804, 1 June 1926, Page 7

TAX ON BETTING.

CABINET’S APPROVAL REPORTED. (F.bom Ode Own Correspondent.) LONDON. April 16. An imposing array of signatures follows a manifesto issued against the proposal to put a tax on betting. These signatures number 51, 20 of which are those of Bishops, the others being names prominent in the Anglican and Free Churches. The manifesto points out that: — There is every reason to anticipate that the taxation of betting with its accompanying changes in the law of the country, the licensing of bookmakers and the opening of ready-money betting offices, would mean increase in betting. This has been the effect in other countries, and it is unlikely that the extension of the facilities for betting, together with the added inducement of Government sanction, would have any different result in this country. There can be no doubt that the proposal •to license bookmakers would create a new vested interest, which would prove a distinct obstacle to reform in the direction of restriction. The needs of the country call for every effort to be made to reduce the betting now taking place, and nothing should be done which would serve to establish the evil more firmly. According to the Daily Mail s political correspondent, the Cabinet has now approved the proposal of the Chancellor of the Exchequer for a tax on betting, and that the tax will therefore come forward in the Budget which Mr Winston Churchill is to open on April 26. But the tax is to be applied in such a way that no “legalising” of other forms of betting than those now recognised by law will be necessary. It is intended to app>y only to betting with bookmakers by means of a credit account, and to ready-money bets on the race-course. Stamps will be used, it is proposed, to collect the readymoney bet taxes, and bookmakers with credit accounts would make a return on which the tax would be levied. For the current financial year the Chancellor expects to raise only a few millions from the tax,' but in a full year it is computed that a sum of from £10,000.000 to £12,000,000 at least would b'e obtained.