Duty on Contract Buses Changed
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ACLAUSE to change the Excise duty payable on certain types of bus was passed during the committee stage of the Finance Bill last week.
Mr. John Hay, Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Transport, said the clause deleted from the definition of a hackney carriage in Section 27 (1) of the Vehicles (Excise) Act, 1949, a proviso enabling buses and coaches to be licensed at the rate applicable to private cars if they were let on hire for three months or more.
A vehicle hired for three months or more was noi classified as a hackney carriage, and became liable for duty under Section 6 and the Fifth Schedule of the Act. The rate of duty became £12 10s. a year, instead of the hackney-carriage rate, varying from £12 a year for a vehicle with 4-70 seats, to f12, plus 10s. for each seat in excess of 20, for vehicles with more than 20 seats.
The practical effect of the change was that concerns providing transport for
public-works contractors and others on long-term contracts would in future pay duty at the rate appropriate to the seating capacity of the vehicle. Buses with 20 seats or fewer would pay duty at a slightly lower rate than at present. For larger buses there was a graduated addition to the flat rate of 10s. for every seat over 20. A 20-seater now paying £112 10s. would in future pay £12, but the rate. for a 30-seater would rise to £17.
For the Opposition, Mr. Wedgwood Berm urged the Treasury to adopt a far more liberal policy towards Excise duty on hackney carriages, so as to encourage the use of public transport instead of private cars. He thought that in large cities the taxi might be the solution of the problem of congestion.
"We must not be hidebound and rigid. and suppose that public transport necessarily means only buses," he said. He recommended the plentiful provision of cheap taxis, and suggested that London Transport might enter the taxi business.