§ (1.) Where the total joint income of a husband and wife charged to Income Tax, by way either of assessment or deduction, does not exceed five hundred pounds, and upon a claim for exemption, relief, or abatement, under the Acts relating to the Income Tax, the Commissioners for general purposes of those Acts are satisfied that such total income includes profits of the wife from any business carried on or exercised by means of her own era labour, and that the rest of the total income or any part thereof arises or accrues from profits of a business carried on or exercised by means of the husband's own personal labour and unconnected with the business of the wife, they shall deal with such claim as if it were a claim in respect of the said profits of the wife, and a separate claim on the part of the husband in respect of the rest of the total income, but they shall deal with any income of the husband arising or accruing from the business of his wife or from any source connected therewith as if it were part of the income of the wife.
§ (2.) In this section "business" means any profession, trade, employment, or vocation, or any office or employment of profit, and the "profits of a business" means any profits, gains, or remuneration arising or accruing from the business and chargeable under Schedule or Schedule E. in the Income Tax Act 1853.
§ (3.) Sub-section 2 of Section 34 of the Finance Act 1894 is hereby repealed, save as respects any Income Tax charged under any former Act.
§ He said the clause embodied an alteration in the law he had urged on a good many occasions—namely, that where the joint incomes of husband and wife were separately earned the two incomes should for the purposes of tax be treated as separate; that was to say, that in cases in which the wife earned a living herself, and added it to her husband's earnings, the two should not be combined.
254THE CHANCELLOR OF THE ENCHEQUERsaid that when Ids hon. Friend brought the subject before the House last year he was obliged to resist the proposal because it appeared to hint to go to a very dangerous extent. This clause was a different matter. It had been very carefully framed with the result that in the first place it only applied to industrial incomes and not to incomes derived from investment; arid, secondly, he did not think that there could be any collusion between the husband and wife, so that their earnings really derived from one and the same trade could be treated as separate incomes. He was, therefore, prepared to accept the clause. ["Hear, hear!"]
§ Clause read a Second time, and ordered o stand part of the Bill.
§ Committee report Progress; to sit again upon Thursday 17th June.