The purpose of the Bill is fairly clear from the arrangement of the sections. It is to charge and impose certain miscellaneous taxes to which I shall briefly refer, and also to impose an Excise duty on mineral hydro-carbon light oils at 6d. per gallon. To avoid misconception, I would like to emphasise that until the Financial Resolution upon which the relevant section of the Bill is based was passed, there was no Excise duty chargeable on any hydro-carbon light oil which might be manufactured here. Any person who wished to manufacture petrol, who was prepared to take the risk of installing plant, could have done so. I am not going to say that that happy condition of affairs would have prevailed for long once manufacture had been established. The position now is that a firm is installing plant, though comparatively small, to manufacture petrol—to describe it by its common name—at Haulbowline, and the purpose of this is to impose an Excise duty on the output. The amount they propose to turn out is 3,000,000 gallons of petrol in the year. It is made I believe really as a by-product. Most of the other products made are not dutiable and will be sold at the port to ships and others as I think this petrol will also be, to some extent.
The second section is to charge Excise duties at various rates on tobacco growers, tobacco rehandlers and tobacco curers. They are all chargeable under the Tobacco Act of 1934. I may say, with regard to the duties chargeable under sub-section (1) of Section 2, that it is in replacement of the existing Tobacco Curers' Licence duty which was at the same rate, namely 5/-.
The third section is to discontinue a rebate granted in the Finance Act of 1930 to cars which at that date were five years old and upwards. It is confined entirely to cars which were five years old in the year 1930 and cars four years old at that date have not enjoyed the rebate. It is proposed to remove the anomaly altogether and put all cars on the same basis.
No. 4 further enables the Revenue Commissioners to require the production of certificates of origin in the case of imported commodities and is necessitated by the fact that, in general, international trade is now largely based on inter-State agreements involving a definite quantitative exchange of goods between various countries and it is necessary for us to know what goods are being imported from outside countries with whom we have such trade agreements.
Number 5 provides for the payment of certain bounties by the Revenue Commissioners. It relates to those items of compensation bounties to which I have referred, and if Senators will look at the section they will note that it applies only to commodities in respect of which a draw-back is already being paid. For instance, whenever a draw-back is paid on tobacco according to Section 1, and again whenever a draw-back is paid on sugar made from beet; whenever a similar draw-back is payable on oil made in Saorstát Eireann and so on. The need arises from the fact that our manufacturers could purchase tobacco and petrol of foreign origin shipped here cheaper than they are able to purchase them from home manufacturers. Whenever these raw materials are worked into the finished article the manufacturer as a result of this section will be able to export it on the same basis as if he had used imported goods instead of the home goods. He may thus compete with the articles manufactured by foreign manufacturers at the same low rate as if our people were able to purchase foreign raw material.
Number 6 provides for the termination of certain exemptions from stamp duty. They have grown up since 1838, not for every public body, but for some public bodies, and in the opinion of the Revenue Commissioners are being irregularly, or if I may put it that way, illegally assumed by certain local authorities in connection with the issue of certain receipts, the collection of certain rates and the making of certain contracts. The position is very anomalous. It has grown up here over a series of years—first by the extension and adaptation of the machinery for collecting poor rate through the collection of rates other than poor rates, and through the assumption by local authorities that all contracts entered into for public works were contracts under the Act of 1838. To remedy this position it would be necessary to compel local authorities to seggregate their poor rates from rates raised for other purposes and to compel them to issue separate receipts giving a stamped receipt for one part of the rate and an unstamped receipt for another. This would involve a corresponding duplication and extension of staff of the Revenue Commissioners and as this would be on the whole more costly to the local authorities and the State the best method is to remove the exemption altogether and have the same procedure in the case of local authorities as applies to all private citizens whenever a receipt for over £2 is given. Local authorities will then be in the same position as a shopkeeper or ratepayer and will have to stamp receipts.
