Finance (New Duties) Act, 1916

Duties on matches.

3.(1) There shall, as from the fifty day of April nineteen hundred and sixteen, be charged, levied and paid on matches imported into Great Britain or Ireland a duty of Customs at the rate of three shillings and sixpence for every ten thousand matches so imported.

(2) There shall as from the fifth day of April nineteen hundred and sixteen, be charged, levied and paid on matches made in Great Britain or Ireland an Excise duty at the rate of three shillings and fourpence for every ten thousand matches so made, and so in proportion for any less quantity, and on a licenecs to be taken out annually by a manufacturer of matches an Excise duty of one pound:

Provided that matches which are proved to the Commissioners to have made before the fifth day of April nineteen hundred and sixteen, shall not be liable to the Excise duty under this provision.

(3) Where the Commissioners are satisfied that a box of matches contains more than eighty matches, the Customs and Excise duty to be charged on any matches so contained exceeding eighty shall be at the rate of one shilling and ninepence and one shilling and eightpence respectively for every ten thousand matches, instead of three shillings and sixpence and three shillings and fourpence.

(4) The Commissioners may make regulations prohibiting the manufacture of matches except by persons holding a licence and having made entry for the purpose, and for fixing the date of expiration of the licence, and also for regulating the manufacture of matches and the removal from the manufactory of matches with a view to securing and collecting the Excise duty imposed by this Act, and may by those regulations apply to the Excise duty on matches and to manufacturers of matches any enactments relating to any duty of Excise or Customs and to persons carrying on any trade subject to the laws of Excise, and may provide for giving the necessary drawbacks and allowances in respect of matches to be exported or used for ships’ stores and for securing, in the case of imported matches, a notification on each box of the contents or minimum or maximum contents of the box.

If any person acts in contravention of, or fails to comply with, any of those regulations, the article in respect of which the offence is committed shall be forfeited and the person committing the offence shall be liable in respect of each offence to an Excise penalty, or in the case of offences in connection with imported matches to a Customs penalty, of fifty pounds.

(4) For the purposes of the duties under this section, a match which has more than one pount of ignition shall be reckoned as so many matches as there are points of ignition.