Business Men Never Able to Tell What They Must Pay:
Luxuries To-day No Luxuries To-morrow When the newly appel National Teri Committee gets to work, experts are provided for to draw up @ scientific tant. But the Sunde and wncortinty of present (aration call for immediate action.
inane man vos ome to doy what he will be caked to een on the some atta, And all he ante te for definite informa Fron and'" reander seal One of the most frequent cri isms levied against the prevail system of duties on imports and exports under the Nationalist authorities, is that foreign firms, well as Chinese, do not know from one day to the next what new aherne for raising money will up-'86 all their commercial calculations. Gado the present eyston, i has fboen ascertained from the informa-lon of several representative {foreign firm: there is no definite status upon which the calculations of hi houses can be based.
As regards imports, for example, foreign firm may order machin: ery for a Shanghai purchaser under the now fairly general custom of fob, delivery a6 a safeguard whenever possible, Perusal of the "luxury" lists reveals no hint that the machinery in question might be adjudged dutiable under thie clause, But, when the machinery is ready for clearance through the Customs, the disconcerted importer of a milk: cooling apparatus may be told that it is listed as a luxury. Another time, he may not hear this verdict, 'The result, however, has been that importing firms can' never be quite sure where they grand in the mat: for of what comes under the luxury tax and what does.net, Sometimes, Sometimes Not One well known local importer, in thin connection, describes an experience he had, when a commodity. which by the farthest stretch of imagination only could have been placed under "luxuries," was cleared Yhrough the Customs, The young Chinese clerk with whom he had dealings listened to his discussion pleasantly and even agreed that the Mirticle in question allowed of much diversity "of Interpretation," but Fearon was out of the quot tion, and. rather than wast more precious time and energy, the business man' pocketed. Joss, and his receipt. Then, a fow days later, a similar kind of machinery had to be cleared, and a "green" form was filled out as customary for luxury dutiable articles, The form was returned with the information that this was not a luxury and that a white form should have been. used, A better way to croute friction between the average "hard-headed" business man and the Chinese authorities could hardly have been con-revived than this form of illogic. The general feeling at the present time might be stated simply as the desire on the part of local firms for a clean-cut definition of taxation.
The business man reasons that once this is made definite his customer can be charged accordingly and his own losses will be minimized accord-ven more interesting situation can be traced as regards exports and one illustration suffices to show the general demoralization and the haphazard business methods.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.