§ MR. CONDON (Tipperary, E.)To ask Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer whether he is aware that a number of income-tax payers entitled to relief on earned income under The Finance Act, 1907, and who were not aware that 30th September was the last day for sending in claims, have therefore lost the benefit of that relief; and whether, as that was the first year in which the Act came into force, he will extend the time for sending in such claims this time to 1st March next.
(Answered by Mr. Asquith.) It is expressly provided by Section 19 (4) of the Finance Act of last session that the allowance in respect of earned income shall only be given if claimed before 30th September. This provision was necessary for administrative reasons, and ample notice of the necessity for making the claims before 30th September was given in my Budget Speech on 18th April last, public attention being also frequently called to it by observations in the Press during the summer, as well as by church door notices, and, wherever practicable, by personal intimation to individual taxpayers by the Revenue authorities in August after the Act became law. In view of these facts, and of the explicit statutory provision already referred to, it is impossible to admit claims which have been delayed beyond 30th September by the taxpayer's, or his agent's, carelessness or inadvertence; but in order that as little hardship as possible may be inflicted as a result of the taxpayer's unfamiliarity with the new machinery, instructions have been given that the expression, however informal, to the surveyor of taxes 1063 within the statutory time-limit of an intention to claim the allowance shall be treated as a "claim" within the meaning of the section, and further, that special consideration should be shown in cases in which the delay was wholly due to causes, such as prolonged illness, which are shown to be outside the taxpayer's own control.