HC Deb 29 February 1872 vol 209 cc1151-2
MR. KAVANAGH

asked the First Lord of the Treasury, Whether the Commissioners of Church Temporalities in Ireland are justified in refusing to allow deductions for Income Tax on the charges hereafter to be paid to them (under Clause 32 of the Irish Church Act, 1869) for the purpose of extinguishing the rent-charge in fifty-two years, the words of that Clause being The annual sum charged by such order shall have priority…and be subject to the same charges, if any, as the rent-charge in lieu of tithes heretofore payable out of the same lands; the Income Tax having always hitherto been (since its imposition) one of the charges to which said rent-charge was liable?

MR. GLADSTONE

Sir, the Question of the hon. Member is a question of law. I have, therefore, consulted the Attorney General for Ireland, who is distinctly of opinion that the Commissioners are proceeding according to law in the course they have taken, and in declining to make these deductions. He also observes that the time for raising the question, if it is desired to raise it, would be when the first instalment comes to be paid.