§ SIR CHARLES CAMERON (Glasgow, Bridgeton)I beg to ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether his attention has been called to the fact that while income tax is paid on ordinary feu duties in Scotland as on ground rents in England, it is charged twice, once on the feuar and once on the superior, on the double or treble feu duties payable under the Scottish custom at stated intervals; whether he can state approximately the annual amount of revenue, on which this double income tax is thus paid; and whether, as no similar duplication of income tax arises under the English or Irish systems, he will consider the advisability of either allowing the feuar to deduct income tax in payment of so-called duplicands and triplicands, or of allocating the second income tax now levied on them to purely Scottish purposes?
§ THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER (Sir MICHAEL HICKS BEACH, Bristol, W.)Property chargeable under Schedule A of the Income Tax Acts is assessed on its full annual value, and, under the Act of 1842, the superior is assessed directly in respect of 732 all dues or casual profits, other than rents or other annual payments, on which he pays the tax by suffering deduction. Therefore, as these duplicate or triplicate feu duties are charged to income tax directly, while the property out of which they issue is already assessed on its full annual value, there is to that extent a double charge of income tax. But these periodical payments or fines are not confined to Scotland, and, wherever they occur, there is the same difficulty under the income tax law. I am unable to state the annual amount of tax paid on these sums, but it will be clear to the hon. Member that if this question is to be raised it cannot be dealt with as a purely Scottish one.