§ MR. MAURICE HEALY (Cork)asked Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer, Whether he can state generally the conditions on which it is proposed to remit the penalties payable on stamping instruments executed prior to the passing of the Customs and Inland Revenue Act of 1888; and, in particular, whether it is proposed that there should be any limit of time as regards the date of the instrument proposed to be stamped; and, when the Memorandum dealing with the matter will be issued?
§ THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER (Mr. GOSCHEN) (St. George's, Hanover Square)The question has been considered, and it is thought that the penalties payable on stamping the instruments in question may be remitted; but the concession will not, of course, extend to instruments which cannot in any case be legally stamped after execution without payment of a fixed statutory penalty, nor is it to apply to instruments in respect of which personal penalties have been incurred, or to articles of clerkship. In any case in which a longer period than three months may have expired since the unstamped or insufficiently stamped instrument was first executed, the remission of the 1720 penalty or penalties must be by way of repayment. The Board of Inland Revenue, however, will refuse the benefit of this concession in any case in which it may appear that the instrument is not voluntarily presented for stamping, but is presented in consequence of other circumstances—such as, for instance, the necessity of producing the instrument in Court, or of making good the title to property at the requisition of a purchaser. In the consideration of applications for relief from penalties payable on stamping instruments executed prior to the passing of the Customs and Inland Revenue Act, 1888, and not presented for the purpose until after January 1 next, the Board will have regard to the fact that the liability to the payment of such penalties might have been avoided had advantage been taken of the arrangement in question.