CLAUSE 4.—(Power to Apply for Substituted Site Value at Any Time up to the First Occasion on which Increment Value Duty is Paid.) (Hansard, 1 August 1913)

§ Mr. PRETYMAN
I beg to move to leave out from the words "occasion after the commencement of this Act has arisen on which the site value of the land has to be ascertained for the purpose of Increment Value Duty," and to insert instead thereof the words "claim for Increment Value Duty has been made."
The Chancellor of the Exchequer will easily appreciate the object of this Amendment. The claim for duty is really the first occasion on which a very large proportion of those who have to pay duty realise the position in which they are. The proposal itself is a concession, I admit, but I would suggest to the Chancellor of the Exchequer that the subject has the undoubted right to get the benefit of any exemption to Which he is entitled. This Amendment does not propose to increase any exemption whatever. It merely extends the period within which a person who is potentially liable to Increment Value Duty may have the right of claiming a substituted site value, to which he is actually entitled. It is only fair he should have an opportunity for bringing forward grounds for 1002 resisting a claim when that claim is made, and that he should not be prejudiced in resisting that claim because he has not objected some very long period before the claim actually was made. What happens on an occasion is that the owner is asked to deliver particulars. He delivers the particulars and hears nothing more. He may or may not have a claim against him. The chances are that he will not. If he does not, nothing happens. If there is no claim for Increment Value Duty this Clause will not operate, but, if a claim is made, my suggestion is that when the claim is made this is the first occasion when his attention is really called to the point, and he ought to have an opportunity of urging his claim for a substituted site value. It is only reasonable, because until the claim arises he never really appreciates his position. I am sure that the object of the State is only to take the tax to which it is fairly entitled, and if a man is entitled to an exemption he ought not to lose it simply because he has not put forward a a claim, not from negligence, but simply from want of knowledge of his position under a most complicated Statute, which is not understood by many people learned in the law and still less by ordinary owners of property.

§ Mr. LLOYD GEORGE
I am sorry that I cannot accept this Amendment. I think that we have gone a long way to meet the criticisms that have been made. There is really no case for this because after the occasion the man who will benefit by the site value has parted with the property and it is in the hands of somebody else. This Clause is intended to meet the case of a man who has paid more for his house than it is really worth.

§ Mr. PRETYMAN
I will not delay the Committee. We had an arrangement and if the Chancellor of the Exchequer cannot 1003 accept it, I will defer any suggestion of the kind until the Revenue Bill is passed.