§ MR. HERBERT SAMUEL (Yorkshire, Cleveland)I beg to ask Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer whether it is compulsory for companies and others, who deduct income-tax from payments made by them, to furnish in all cases the certificate of deduction which the Income-Tax Commissioners require to 1403 be produced by persons claiming abatements; and, if not, whether he will consider the desirability of making such certificates obligatory whenever the person from whose income the tax has been deducted desires to obtain such a certificate.
§ MR. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAINThere is no statutory obligation on companies or others to furnish certificates of deduction of income-tax; and if it were common to refuse such certificates, or to put taxpayers to expense in obtaining them, it would, I think, be necessary to impose such obligation by law. But the Board of Inland Revenue doubt whether in practice there is much need for legislation in that sense. Most companies issue with their dividend warrants a counterfoil containing a certificate of deduction of income-tax; and where a certificate is wanting its absence can very often be supplied by other evidence which the Commissioners will accept as establishing the fact of deduction of income-tax.