HC Deb 22 March 1906 vol 154 cc620-1
SIR WILLIAM BULL (Hammers smith)

I beg to ask Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer why the Board of Inland Revenue have made new regulations, which deprive persons from the relief to which they are statutorily entitled under Section 8 of 61 and 62 Vic., c. 10, except under such conditions as they admit are practically impossible to be complied with.

THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER (Mr. ASQUITH,) Fifeshire, E

The regulations are designed merely for the purpose of obtaining satisfactory proof of a claimant's title to relief. They only operate to deprive a claimant of relief when he cannot produce such proof, and in the view of the Department they can be complied with.

SIR WILLIAM BULL

I beg to ask Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer whether claimants entitled to relief from Income Tax, under 61 and 62 Vic, c. 10, Part 3, s. 8, can be deprived of any part of the repayment to which they are entitled, on the ground that some of their dividends are upon stocks and shares which are not exclusively inscribed or registered in their own name.

MR. ASQUITH

No. But they must produce satisfactory evidence of their beneficial interest in such stocks and shares.

SIR WILLIAM BULL

I beg to ask Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer whether, when the Board of Inland Revenue require documentary legal evidence of a claimant being entitled to a certain proportion of an income, whether inscribed or registered in his own name or in the names of others, they will supply him with a form to be executed in Great Britain before a magistrate, justice of the peace, or a commissioner for oaths, or abroad before the British consul, justice of the peace, or a notary public, that the claimant may know their requirements.

MR. ASQUITH

What the Commissioners of Inland Revenue require in cases of securities registered in names other than that of the claimant is not an instrument in the form of a declaration made for the express purpose of obtaining a repayment of Income Tax, but some documentary evidence which shall establish the fact of beneficial ownership, on the part of the claimant, in stocks or shares standing in some other person's name. What such documentary evidence should be must depend upon the particular circumstances of each case, and cannot well be prescribed beforehand or be embodied in a form.