§ 53. Mr. GINNELLasked the Prime Minister, in view of instances in which the opinions of the present legal advisers of Departments have been reversed in the Courts, admitted by the advisers themselves to have been wrong and brought under the notice of the late Government, respectively, whether he will have the opinion of the Treasury advisers reconsidered with reference to the liability of the Delvin Rural District Council to 1739 Income Tax on trust land held as trustees for a charitable purpose on condition of making no profit; whether he will have the facts reconsidered that, if Income Tax were assessable, it should be on the actual profits and not on the Poor Law valuation; that the council being only trustees are not in occupation of the land; that the council are precluded by Clause 2 of the trust scheme from making any profit from the land; that the purchase instalments for the land are raised as a district charge on the rates for the benefit of poor people in the neighbourhood of the land; that the Income Tax Acts provide for exemption from Income Tax of rents and profits of lands vested in trustees for charitable purposes; that the Mortmain and Charitable Uses Act, 1888, Section 13, Sub-section (2), defines and exempts such uses as charitable; that, in the case of the Commissioners of Income Tax v. Pemsel, 1891, the House of Lords defined and exempted from Income Tax trusts for the relief of poverty and other charities beneficial to the community; and whether, in accordance with the law, the claim made upon the Delvin District Council will be withdrawn?
§ Mr. BONAR LAWThe question of the Income Tax liability in this case has already received full consideration. If the council are advised that the claim of the revenue is ill-founded they should follow the procedure prescribed by the law in such case. Full provision exists for the determination of Income Tax appeals and claims by the tribunals constituted or designated by the Income Tax Acts.
§ Mr. GINNELLSeeing that this question cannot be contested in a Court of law without expense to the rates, will not the Government lay down a rule covering cases like this?