Kinematograph year book (1944)

170 The Kinematograph Year Book. notwithstanding the postponement Act ; (3) Rating authorities are not entitled to make assessments on profits, and therefore requests for returns indicating a theatre's profits should be hrmly refused ; (4) E.P.D. does not necessarily prevent rating authorities from increasing assessments. AS was generally expected, the Entertainment Tax figures largely in the indirect taxation imposed by the 1943 Budget. The tax on all seats above Is. [8d. net] was increased by one-third, the yield in a full year being £9,000,000. The doubling of the tax in the previous year provided about £31,246,000 in revenue as compared with estimated receipts of £28,000,000. The total revenue from this source therefore exceeds £40,000,000, which, as the C.E.A. annual report points out, represents the limit of taxation of the Trade. It is not easy to assess the full effect of this swinging increase in the tax. The late Sir Kingsley Wood himself contended that it had made no difference whatever to attendances owing to the exemptions applying to low-priced seats. This view was endorsed by the C.E.A., which states that patronage has continued generally at the high level of the previous year. On the other hand, concrete figures have been presented to show the very considerable decline in business which has taken place since the increased tax. In Lancashire the takings of one theatre in an industrial area were actually less than 1941 ; although there had been a reduction of nearly 1,000 in admissions, the tax increase was £166. This is an instance where the public definitely refuse to pay for the higher-priced seats, and in order to accommodate the public some exhibitors have increased the number of lOd. seats and reduced the Is. 6d. seats, as it was felt that the gap between the two prices was too steep. It is this tendency to ignore the higher-priced seats that has provoked a dangerous situation for the smaller exhibitor, who, unless some early modification is made in the tax, sees himself being driven out of the business. According to another provincial exhibitor fewer people were coming into the theatre although the kinemas were handling more money. While the C.E.A. does not accept these alarmist views of the position, it does not ignore that the Entertainment Tax is one of the most important matters to be dealt with on the cessation of hostilities. It is pointed out that any slight falling away in revenue would leave the Industry overtaxed, and that any drop in post-war patronage would need to be accompanied by a reduction in the tax. A constructive suggestion for the placing of the incidence of the tax upon a more equitable basis has been made by Coun. H. S. Gent. He points out that the falling off in the patronage of the higher-priced seats was affecting tax revenue and net revenue of the exhibitor, and to meet this he advocates scrapping the present entertainment duty levied in pence, halfpence, or farthings in favour of a tax on a percentage basis on the gross turnover. Such a scheme would level out the payment, and there would no longer be the inequitable situation of a patron in a cheap seat paying only 12i per cent, on turnover and the occupant of a higher-priced seat having to pay 40 per cent. 'HE employment owing to war exigencies of so many substitutes and the A need of economy of existing materials, and also of increased production, has resulted in a great increase of work for the British Standards Association. Many of the new standaid specifications apply both to war and peace-time practice ; some of them deal with the film and various phases of production ADMISSIONS AND THE ENTERTAINMENT TAX. STANDARDISATION