§ Viscount Hinchingbrookeasked the Minister of Labour if he will give a list of the amounts of Purchase Taxes and Customs and Excise Duties which now enter into the items of the household budgets on which the official cost-of-living index is based.
§ Mr. IsaacsPurchase Tax is chargeable on the wholesale value of certain of the items which are covered by the interim index of retail prices, but it is not practicable to state the amount of tax which is included in each of the actual retail prices quoted for such items. Moreover, many of the items on which Purchase Tax is payable carry very little weight in the calculation of the index, as will be seen from the description of the method of calculating the index published in Supplement No. 2 to the Industrial Relations Handbook. The general effect of the removal or reduction of the Purchase Tax would, therefore, have a relatively small effect on the index. It should also be noted that many of the taxes were in operation at the date from which the index started (June, 1947) and that it is only changes in the rate of tax since that date which affect the level of the index.
27WThese qualifications should be borne in mind in relation to the following list of the amounts of Purchase Tax payable on the wholesale value of articles covered by the index.
Items Rate of Tax (Per cent, of wholesale value) Clothing— Cotton, woollen and rayon clothing materials (other than Utility goods and baby knitting wool) 66⅔ Articles of apparel for adults (other than Utility goods and sanitary towels) 33⅓ Women's Utility fully-fashioned stockings 33⅓ Children's Non-Utility gloves 33⅓ Adults' footwear (other than Utility goods) 33⅓ Household Goods and Toilet Articles— Metal kitchen cabinets 33⅓ Radio sets 33⅓ Pedal cycles 33⅓ Vacuum cleaners 33⅓ Domestic sewing machines 33⅓ Alarm clocks 33⅓ Table mangles 33⅓ Electric fires 100 Gas fires 66⅔ Linoleum, felt base, carpets and rugs 33⅓ Tea towels, and glass cloths (other than Utility goods) 66⅔ Enamel wash-up bowls 33⅓ Electric lamp bulbs 33⅓ Tennis rackets 33⅓ Gramophone records 66⅔ Toilet soap, tooth paste, razor blades 33⅓ Cold cream 100 Proprietary medicines 33⅓ Stationery 33⅓ Apart from Purchase Tax, the principal items included in the index which are subject to specific Customs or Excise Duties, and the approximate amounts of duty included in the retail prices, are as follow:
Items Amount of duty s. d. Tea 6 per lb. Sugar 2¼ per lb. Cocoa 1¼ per lb. Beer of average strength 9 per pint Whisky of usual strength 24 7 per bottle Pipe tobacco—cheaper varieties 3 0 per ounce Cigarettes—size sold at 1s. 9d. for ten 1 5 for ten Matches—safety Nearly ¾ per box of 50 Petrol 9 per gallon Various items in the index may also be affected, directly or indirectly, by other duties, such as those under the Import Duties Act, the Ottawa Agreements Act, the Key Industry duties, the duties on 28W imported beef, on dried fruit and on silk, the Entertainments Duty and the Motor Vehicle duties. It is impracticable to give details of the incidence of these duties in respect of individual items.