SET 'A RECIPE FOR TRANSPORT AUSTERITY'
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Fr now paid a manufacturer to set up his own distribution network, declared an MP who last week complained about the effects of the Selective Employment Tax.
"It is an unnecessary and wasteful duplication of national resources that manufacturers re encouraged to extend and even to set up distribution networks for their products when here are already in existence wholesalers who specialize in this work," commented Mr. David ditchell (Tory, Basingstoke), who was opening a short Commons debate on the tax.
He pointed out that the tax premium was paid for transport and warehouse workers who vere employed by a manufacturer, while transport concerns got back the money they paid. tut some paid the full levy per employee because their warehouse happened to be that of a vholesaler.
Mr. Mitchell said that some firms affected by the tax had saved on the money they were lutting by for expansion, modernization, new equipment, replacing road vehicles and meeting he technological age. The Government's action was a recipe for utility and austerity in years o come.
Mr. Niall MacDermot, Financial Secretary to the Treasury, maintained that the effect of he tax in relation to manufacturers setting up their own distribution machinery instead of !sing hauliers would be purely marginal.
Referring to Mr. Mitchell's statement about the cut-back on such things as the replacement f road vehicles, Mr. MacDermot wondered what was the extent to which any action of this ind was really the effect of SET, and how much was the effect of the July measures. He would not accept that as a permanent feature of the tax this would be a representative ray in which firms would deal with it.