Finance Act 1968
Finance Act 1968
1968 CHAPTER 44
An Act to grant certain duties, to alter other duties, and to amend the law relating to the National Debt and the Public Revenue, and to make further provision in connection with Finance.
[26th July 1968]
Most Gracious Sovereign,
W e , your Majesty's most dutiful and loyal subjects, the Commons of the United Kingdom in Parliament assembled, towards raising the necessary supplies to defray Your Majesty's public expenses, and making an addition to the public revenue, have freely and voluntarily resolved to give and grant unto Your Majesty the several duties hereinafter mentioned; and do therefore most humbly beseech Your Majesty that it may be enacted, and be it enacted by the Queen's most Excellent Majesty, by and with the advice and consent of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal, and Commons, in this present Parliament assembled, and by the authority of the same, as follows:—
Part I
Customs and Excise
1 Spirits, wine, British wine and tobacco.
(1) For the following provisions of the Finance Act 1964 , as amended by section 1(2) of the Finance Act 1967 , setting out rates of customs and excise duties, namely—
( a ) Table 1 in Schedule 1 (spirits other than imported perfumed spirits);
( b ) Schedule 3 (wine);
( c ) Schedule 4 (British wine),
there shall be substituted the provisions set out in Schedules 1, 2 and 3 respectively to this Act.
(2) In section 1(2) of the Finance Act 1965 (which increased each of the rates of customs and excise duty and of drawback in respect of tobacco set out in Schedule 5 to the Finance Act 1964 by 10 s. per pound) for the reference to 10 s. there shall be substituted a reference to 14 s. 4 d. ; but this subsection shall not affect the rates of drawback payable in the case of goods in respect of which duty has been paid otherwise than at the rates having effect by virtue of this section.
(3) Section 109(1) of the Customs and Excise Act 1952 (which provides that no spirits shall be delivered for home use unless they have been warehoused for a period of at least three years) shall not apply to imported compounded spirits of any kind specified for the purposes of this subsection in regulations made by the Commissioners; and section 5 of the Finance Act 1966 (which contains an exemption from the said section 109(1) confined to imported vodka) shall cease to have effect on the expiration of the period of one month beginning with the day on which this Act is passed.
(4) Subsections (1) and (2) of this section shall have effect as from 20th March 1968.
2 Hydrocarbon oils.
(1) As from six o'clock in the evening of 19th March 1968—
( a ) section 2 of the Finance (No. 2) Act 1964 (which, as amended by section 1(3) of the Finance Act 1967 , provides for a duty of customs at the rate of three shillings and sevenpence a gallon to be charged on imported hydrocarbon oils and for a duty of excise at the same rate to be charged on hydrocarbon oils produced in the United Kingdom, on petrol substitutes and on spirits used for power methylated spirits) shall have effect with the substitution for the words ‘three shillings and sevenpence’ of the words ‘three shillings and elevenpence’;
( b ) subsection (2) of section 92 of the Finance Act 1965 (which, as amended as aforesaid, provides that the amount of a grant under subsection (1) of that section by the Minister of Transport to the operator of a bus service towards defraying customs or excise duties charged on bus fuel shall not exceed tenpence for every gallon of fuel used or estimated to have been used in operating the bus service during the period to which the grant relates) and section 1(1)( b ) of the Bus Fuel Grants Act 1966 (which, as amended as aforesaid, amends the said subsection (2)) shall have effect as if for any reference therein to tenpence there were substituted a reference to one shilling and twopence; and so much of subsection (9) of the said section 92 as enables the Parliament of Northern Ireland to make laws for purposes similar to the purposes of the provisions of that section shall apply to those provisions as amended by this paragraph.
(2) Where in the case of any hydrocarbon oils which have been delivered for home use it is shown to the satisfaction of the Commissioners—
( a ) that since they were so delivered the oils have been deposited unused in an oil warehouse; and
( b ) that they have been so deposited by reason of having become contaminated or by reason of their consisting of different descriptions of hydrocarbon oils which have accidentally become mixed; and
( c ) that at the time when they were so deposited they were, or, as the case may be, were a mixture of, oils on which the appropriate duty of customs or excise had been paid and not repaid and on which drawback had not been allowed,
then, subject to any conditions which the Commissioners see fit to impose for the protection of the revenue, the Commissioners may make to the occupier of that warehouse a payment in accordance with the provisions of subsection (3) of this section.
(3) The payment aforesaid shall be a payment of an amount appearing to the Commissioners to be equal to the duty which would have been payable if—
( a ) the oils had not become contaminated or mixed; and
( b ) they had first been delivered for home use at the time when they were deposited in the warehouse and the duty had first become chargeable on them on that delivery.
(4) In this section the expression ‘oil warehouse’ means a place of security approved by the Commissioners under section 80 of the Customs and Excise Act 1952 for the deposit, keeping and securing of hydrocarbon oils, and includes a refinery.
3 Reduction in customs duty on goods from Republic of Ireland and abolition of customs duty on hops etc.
(1) As from 1st July 1968, in the case of goods of the Republic of Ireland consigned to the United Kingdom from that country—
( a ) the rates at which the duties of customs are charged on matches by section 4 of the Finance Act 1951 and on mechanical lighters by section 6 of the Finance Act 1928 shall be the same as the corresponding rates of excise duty under those sections;
( b ) Schedule 3 to the Finance Act 1964 (rates of customs duty on wine) shall—
(i) in its application to wine exceeding 32 degrees of proof spirit, have effect as if the rate specified in the third column in respect of still wine in bottle were the same as the rate so specified in respect of still wine not in bottle;
(ii) in its application to wine not exceeding 32 degrees of proof spirit, have effect as if the provisions of that Schedule were the same as those of Schedule 4 to that Act (rates of excise duties on British wine) with the substitution in the latter of ‘Customs Duties’ for ‘Excise Duties’ and the omission of ‘British’ wherever it occurs;
( c ) Table 1 in Schedule 5 to the said Act of 1964 (rates of customs duties on tobacco) shall have effect as if any rate specified in the third column (Commonwealth rates) which exceeds the corresponding rate specified in the fourth column (Convention rates) were the same as that corresponding rate.
(2) Section 3 of the Finance Act 1957 (which charges a duty of customs on hops, hop oil and any extract, essence or other similar preparation made from hops) shall cease to have effect as from the said 1st July, but without prejudice to any right of drawback in respect of duty paid under that section before that date.
4 Duties relating to betting or gaming.
(1) For the purposes of the general betting duty on bets made on or after 25th March 1968, section 12(2)( b ) of the Finance Act 1966 (under which the amount of the duty is an amount equal to two and a half per cent. of the amount staked) shall have effect with the substitution for the words ‘two and a half per cent.’ of the words ‘five per cent.’
(2) For the purposes of the pool betting duty on bets made at any time by reference to any event taking place on or after 25th March 1968, section 1(2) of the Betting Duties Act 1963 (which, as amended, provides that the duty shall be an amount equal to twenty-five per cent. of the amount of the stake money paid) shall have effect with the substitution for the words from ‘equal’ onwards of the words ‘equal to thirty-three and a third per cent. of the amount of the stake money paid.’
(3) The amount of the duty under section 13 of the Finance Act 1966 on a gaming licence in respect of any premises granted so as to expire on a date later than 30th September 1968 shall be determined with the substitution for the Table set out in subsection (2) of that section of the Table set out in Schedule 4 to this Act.
(4) The provisions of Schedule 5 to this Act shall have effect for the purposes of the enforcement of the duties relating to betting or gaming.
5 Purchase tax.
Subject to any new order of the Treasury under section 2 of the Purchase Tax Act 1963, Part I of Schedule 1 to that Act (chargeable and exempt goods and rates of tax) as amended by section 1(4) of the Finance Act 1967shall have effect—
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