§ Mrs. Winifred Ewingasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer what was the total cost of administering purchase tax for each of the last two years in which that tax was in operation.
§ Dr. Gilbert:It is difficult to distinguish the cost of administering purchase tax from the cost of administering other duties, because a common organisation was employed to collect them all. However, making some necessarily arbitrary assumptions about the allocation of staff and other resources, the Customs and Excise estimate is that the cost of administering purchase tax was something over £10 million in each of the last two years of its operation.