Stamps Recklessly Mortgaged by Peking Now a Fine Squeeze for Tax Offices The Ministry of Finance is again ordering all tax offices to report their sales of revenue stamps regularly, according to the Chinese Press. ' Its order, issued through the Financial Commissioner Kiangsu, furnishes curious reading. 'This Ministry, it says, as well as the provincial' offices authorized to collect the stamp duty, has mortgaged quantities of such stamps for loans from the banks. The banks, upon the expiry of the terms' and without the consent of the Ministry, have flooded the ket with these stamps by selling them at a considerable discount. the market instead of procuring them from the Government Bureau.
Most of these tax offices have failed to report their sales for months, while a few have reported a sale of several tens of cents a month only! The Ministry warns them that they must mend their ways, for they will be dealt with severely as the penalty provides for the embezzlement of government funds. This looks very much like a case of "heads I win, tails
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.