§ MR. DIXON-HARTLAND (Middlesex, Uxbridge)I beg to ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether the Income Tax collectors have received special orders this year to press forward its collection; and whether the statement made by some of them that the latest time to be allowed will be the middle of March is correct?
§ THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER (Mr. GOSCHEN, St. George's, Hanover Square)No, Sir; no such orders have been issued. But I may remind the hon. Member that the Easter holidays fall within the current financial year, and that the collectors have very properly appreciated the desirability, in the general interest, of allowing for the shorter time at their disposal in getting in a tax which is payable on the 1st of January, and ought, in any case, to be paid within the financial year. Any statement which has been made that the latest time for payment is the middle of March is incorrect, and has certainly not been made on the responsibility of the Board of Inland Revenue.
§ In reply to a further question by Mr. DIXON-HARTLAND,
§ MR. GOSCHENsaid: The tax must be collected within the financial year, and my hon. Friend should remember that it is really payable on the 1st of January. Every leniency is shown, provided the tax is collected within the financial year.
§ MR. BARTLEY (Islington, N.)I beg to ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether he will announce through the Surveyors of Income Tax 1929 to owners of labourers' cottages his decision to exempt from Income Tax the amounts received from cottages built by the Old castle Board of Guardians, on account of the various annual charges exceeding the rents received; and whether he will instruct the local collectors and assessors of Income Tax to exempt all owners of cottages from Income Tax on account of cottages where the owners can show, as they did at Oldcastle, that the various annual outgoings exceed the amount received as rent?
§ MR. GOSCHENNo general instructions, such as are suggested, can be legally issued. The case of the Oldcastle Board of Guardians is a peculiar one, because the interest of the money borrowed from a Public Department equalled the total of the rents, and, therefore, there was practically nothing to tax.