"AN IMAGINATIVE BUDGET"
Sta,—In your otherwise admirable review of the Budget you omitted one matter which has caused—and must continue to cause—grievous losses on the entire shopkeeping community. I refer to the reduction or abolition of Purchase Tax. In most other tax matters (Income Tax, Customs duties, &c.) provision is made for rebates or repayments, but the shop- keeper who pays Purchase Tax when he buys goods from a wholesaler has no redress when the same tax is either reduced or aboLshed. It is said that he can continue to charge the plus-tax prices until he has exhausted the stocks on which the tax has been paid—but in practice it works out that his competitor down the road who carried a far smaller stock is immediately enabled to charge the lower price. All that has happened in the past is that the shopkeeper has had to lose the tax. In many cases this has been quite a serious matter. Surely if Purchase Tax is to remain for years to come some system could be devised whereby the shopkeeper—who now acts as an unpaid collector of taxes—should be
relieved of this burden.—Yours faithfully, DAVID J. MURPHY. 20 Benhurst Gardens, Selsdon, South Croydon.
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