§ SIR STAFFORD NORTHCOTEsaid, he wished to ask the Secretary to the Treasury, Whether Poor Law Inspectors receiving salaries of£700 a year, and commuted allowances of£300, were charged Income Tax upon£1,000 a year, and allowed superannuation upon£700 a year only; and if so, upon what principle this distinction was made?
MR. PEELsaid, the allowance of£300 a year to cover the personal expenses incurred by the Inspectors was not reckoned in calculating the pension, it being the invariable practice to exclude any such payments from the emoluments upon which the pension was founded. As to whether these sums properly formed part of the taxable income of those officers, that was not so much under the control of the Treasury as the other point. He was informed that the assessor in the Office of the Poor Law Board thought that the£300 allowance ought to be taxed, but he was also informed by the Board of Inland Revenue that the question had never been referred to them, and that in their opinion, supposing the£300 to be spent by the Inspectors in the form contemplated by the allowance, it would not be subject to In come Tax.