§ MR. HART-DAVIESTo ask Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer if his attention has been directed to a matter which affects licensed victuallers, who, being obliged by law to reside on their trade premises, can never be allowed more than two-thirds deduction of the value of those premises for the purposes of Income Tax, whereas other traders, not being obliged to reside on their trade premises, can have the whole value of them deducted from Income Tax, and reside elsewhere in less highly rated dwellings; and whether he will consider this inequality of treatment a tit subject for redress.
379 (Answered by Mr. Asquith.) The obligation to reside on licensed premises does not apply to licensed victuallers as a class, but only to beer-house keepers who are not also keepers of restaurants or eating-houses (Licensing Act, 1902, Section 22). Such premises are not as a rule very highly rated, and I do not think that the law in question, which is contained in Section 101 of the Income Tax Act of 1842, can be said to bear more hardly on the beer-house keepers than it may do on many other traders.