§ MR. SEARSTo ask Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer whether district commissioners of taxes are in the habit of delegating any of their duties connected with assessment, valuation of property, 862 the examination of statements of accounts of profit made in trade, and the certification of exemptions and of abatements in connection with income-tax; if not, will he state by what legal authority the surveyors of taxes interfere in such work for the performance of which district commissioners and additional commissioners were created and for which their clerks and the parochial assessors are paid.
(Answered by Mr. Asquith.) The Board of Inland Revenue know of no such habit on the part of district commissioners of taxes. Surveyors of taxes, so far as I am aware, confine themselves to the performance of their statutory duties. The statutory authority under which they act will be found (a) as regards examination and correction of assessments in Sections 75, 115, 116, 120, 126, and 161 of the Act of 1842, and Sections 51, 52, and 63 of The Taxes Management Act, 1880; (b) as regards exemptions and abatements in Section 164 of the Act of 1842.