§ MR. HENNIKER HEATON (Canterbury)I beg to ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether he is aware that the Colonial Mutual Insurance Company, of Australia, whose head office is in Melbourne, has an affiliated office in London, which has deposited £20,000, and gone through all the legal formalities necessary to allow it to do insurance business in England; whether it is a fact that, when the English insurers in this office claim to deduct Income Tax, they are refused, because their parent office is in a colony, and are told that the law "knows no distinction between a foreign and colonial country;" whether this Colonial Insurance Office, being a British office, the only ground upon which equality is denied is its colonial connection; and whether he is aware that there are in Australia 20 1755 English Insurance Companies upon which no special restrictions are placed, and they are placed on an exact equality there with the four leading Australian Insurance Companies?
§ *MR. GOSCHENThe Law Courts have decided that the 16 & 17 Vict. c. 91, which regulates the deduction from the assessment to the Income Tax, does not apply in cases where life insurance premiums are paid to companies over which Parliament have no jurisdiction, and, consequently, under the existing law, no deduction can be allowed in respect of life insurance premiums which are paid to Colonial Companies. Of course, it is open to Parliament to alter the law in that respect, and such alteration might ho effected before next year. At the same time, I do not think that the Australian Insurance Companies have a very strong locus standi in the matter, considering that they themselves make a difference between colonial and British insurance.