Captain Fitzroywished to ask a question of the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer, with respect to a subject which had caused much uneasiness in the city—he referred to the Income-tax. It was generally understood by those who had to pay in this country the dividends on foreign loans, that by the Assessed Tax Act, No. 2, they must deduct even from the dividends payable to persons residing in foreign countries, the income-tax of 3 per cent. This was thought to be a great injustice and hardship, not only by foreigners, but also by the heads of houses in London, and he could not conceive that 1145 any such deduction could be intended. He would ask whether it were to be made?
§ The Chancellor of the Exchequersaid, that this deduction was altogether an error. The Assessed Tax Act, No. 2, gave no power to levy a duty upon property which was not made subject by the previous act. He had had many communications upon the subject to which the hon. Gentleman had adverted, and the view he had taken of the matter was, that there was no power of deducting the property-tax from the dividends of foreign funds payable in this country, if paid to foreigners residing out of this country, and that the act applied only to the case of dividends of foreign funds payable to people residing in this country.