THE Thames Star. TUESDAY, AUGUST 21, 1923. THE AMUSEMENT TAX.

Thames Star, Volume LVII, Issue 15908, 21 August 1923, Page 4

THE Thames Star.

TUESDAY, AUGUST 21, 1923. THE AMUSEMENT TAX.

•‘With malice towards none, with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right. —' Lincoln.

It does not look as though the Government proposes to sacrifice much revenue by the alterations which it is proposing in the amusement tax. When this tax was imposed in 1917 the country was at war, and the national exchequer was in need of money. The position has, fortunately changed for the better and it is no longer necessary to collect taxation from every possible source. The proposed remission in the amusement tax will wholly relieve from tax all entertainments to which the price of admission does not exceed one shilling. At present a tax of one penny is levied when the price of admission is above ninepence, so that the relief now proposed will be accorded to those who promote or patronise entertainments where the admission charge is one shilling or less. Agricultural societies, football and other clubs, and picture theatre proprietors will be benesfitted by the remission, and those theatrical ventures which have a shilling section will also gain from the change. It will have been anticipated that the remission in this tax would have been greater than is proposed, though it can hardly be suggested that the tax is detrimentally affecting all classes of amusements. The yield from the tax for the past year showed an increase of £33,731 over that for the previous year and the attendance at popular places of entertainment shows no signs of diminution. At the same time it must be admitted that the amusement tax is" not popular, and is indeed regarded with a large amount of disfavour. Generally speaking, it is nndesirable to maintain a multiplicity of sources of taxation for the reason that numerous small taxes are calculated to irritation. Amusements of a legitimate character cannot he regarded as being other than necessary to modern conditions of society and thev are therefore not properly subject to special taxation, except in such times of financial or national stress as existed when the tax on entertainments was first imposed.