HC Deb 07 July 1920 vol 131 cc1577-83

The Stamp Duty chargeable under the heading 'RECEIPT given for, or upon the payment of, money amounting to 2l. or upwards' in the First Schedule to the principal Act, shall be twopence instead of one penny.

The DEPUTY - CHAIRMAN

The Amendment on the Order Paper in the name of the hon. and gallant Member for Shettleston (Rear-Admiral Adair) [to insert at the beginning of the Clause the words, "Except as provided in Section of this Act"] would make a new charge and is, therefore, out of order.

The next Amendment, in the name of the hon. Member for Ealing (Sir H. Nield) [to add at the end of the Clause the words And any such receipt shall include the acknowledgment for money sent upon or with applications for shares in limited liability companies, and any notice given by or on behalf of a person, firm, or company that no receipt will be given for moneys specified or referred to in such notice or words having by necessary implications such effect shall be deemed a refusal to give a receipt duly stamped in any case where the receipt is liable to duty"] is not needed. Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Clause stand part of the Bill."

Colonel WEDGWOOD

I want to enter my protest against the Stamp Duties, because they are doubling the charge for every transaction connected with stocks and shares and property generally, while leaving all charges in connection with real estate as they were. This is a direct penalisation of industry for the benefit of the landed interests. [Interruption.] I am informed that this is not the Stamp Duty, and therefore I will change my remarks. This is an additional charge for receipts, and I hope the Committee understands what it really means. It means a very large additional charge in connection with all business transactions. This is going to be a direct increase in the cost of living in this country, made by a Government that protests that it will do anything in its power to reduce taxation and the cost of living, and I therefore enter my protest against it.

Mr. HOGGE

This Clause gives legislative sanction to an increase in the amount of money to receipt an ordinary account, and I should rather like to know why it is required to have legislative sanction to increase the amount of Stamp Duty on receipts when the Government can double the charge for ordinary postage without even coming to this House. The penny postage, for instance, was increased automatically a few weeks ago, and many of us who were interested in that question at the time withdrew our opposition because we were told that a Post Office Bill was to be introduced into the House. I believe that Post Office Bill has now been introduced, but it has not yet been read a Second time. I have never yet understood why the Government were able to increase the ordinary penny postage without legislation, and when we come to such an ordinary transaction as the amount that shall be paid for receipting accounts, it requires legislative sanction. On the general question of the amount of the increase, after all it is 2d., and it does not sound much, but it is 100 per cent. [An HON. MEMBER: "Hear, hear!"] Some hon. Member seems to have checked my calculation. We have got a number of these grievances which irritate the business men of the country. After all, we talk a great deal about reconstruction in this House, and about many things we are about to do. Yet we have proposals to increase the charge on telephones and telegrams. We have already had the ordinary postage doubled. Now the Government are going to double the ordinary receipt stamp. If you really want to help the business community of the country, you will not help them, nor oil the wheels of industry, by this sort of imposition. The result of this kind of thing is to lead to an enormous amount of evasion. A point in this connection has been brought prominently to my notice, and it is in regard to receipts for contributions to charitable institutions. I do not know the experience of other Members of the Committee, but my experience is—and probaly it is the experience of others—that when a contribution is given to a charitable institution you very seldom find the acknowledgment is receipted with a penny stamp. In some cases recently the Inland Revenue authorities have taken up the position, as the result of facts brought to their knowledge, that every contribution made by a charitable individual to a charity requires to have a receipted account for the amount. My right hon. Friend opposite (Mr. Baldwin) shakes his head. I have got some correspondence in front of me on this very point. I did not mean to use it, because I do not want to delay the proceedings of the Committee; and I do want to have my hon. Friends with me in the lump if we go to a Division.

If, however, the right hon. Gentleman doubts what I am saying, I may have to read the whole of this correspondence. As a matter of fact, I think I will spare him that. I will give him a short summary of it. There is the question of stamped receipts, for instance, for such worthy objects as church purposes. [HON. MEMBERS: "Which Church"?] I am sorry Members of the Committee are treating this question in so light a fashion, for every member is interested in the social and progressive work of the churches of the country. Take the large foreign missions of every church in this country. Take the large social undertakings in which they show their interest in the slums of our great cities. It was originally possible, I think, in the experience of every Member of this Committee to send a contribution to the church treasurer for one of these objects, and the receipt did not require to be stamped. The correspondence I have here is from the Inland Revenue authorities, who are now insisting that every charitable contribution given to such a worthy purpose as a foreign mission must be acknowledged with a receipt properly stamped. What is it going to mean if you double the amount of the stamp? It is going to take from every charitable contribution for one of these great purposes an unfair and unnecessary portion. I end where I started. I am interested to know why it requires legislation to double this amount, when it does not require it in the case of the ordinary postage. Secondly, I should like to know if the Chancellor is prepared to exempt receipts for contributions to charitable purposes from this double duty on account of these important matters in which the people of this country are so deeply interested, and in which, I daresay, the right hon. Gentleman himself is a great believer.

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN

We are acting under the authority of the Post Office Act of 1908. [HON. MEMBERS: "Speak up"] It is there set forth the rates of postage which may be fixed by the Treasury, and the limits within which they may be fixed. We can deal with the penny postage. We cannot deal with some of the other rats with which it is now proposed to deal.

Mr. HOGGE

The penny postage is only one.

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN

In regard to that—

The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN

I think we must not go into the whole of these Stamp Duties. The hon. Gentleman (Mr. Hogge) was in Order in making the analogy that he did, but we cannot now go beyond the points raised.

Mr. HOGGE

On a point of Order. You yourself, Sir Edwin, heard the Chancellor of the Exchequer say that it is the Treasury which has power to deal with the postage. If the Post Office is the instrument of the Treasury, and we are now discussing the power of the Treasury, then I submit we are in Order.

The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN

I was not objecting to the explanation of the right hon. Gentleman as to the power of the Post Office, but we have got to other matters to which reference should not be made on the Motion before the Committee.

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN

I think I have answered the question of the hon. Gentleman, which is germane to the discussion. As to the other questions put, I am not sure whether I will be in Order in answering them

Mr. HOGGE

It is the twopenny receipt on charitable contributions to which I should like an answer. If my right hon. Friend, for instance, as I hope he may do some day, was to send a contribution to the funds of the Independent Liberal party, it would require 2d. to acknowledge it.

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN

I quite agree with my hon. Friend opposite that that indeed would be a charity. [An HON. MEMBER: "It would be a very good cause!"] In relation to the 2d. stamp, my answer must be that I could not make the exception which he suggests. His very illustration shows the difficulty of defining a charity. What is a charity? Is it the association of a small number of gentlemen in distress obeying the law of self-preservation in the face of world forces which threaten to sweep them out of existence? Is that a charity? Here is a difficulty in definition of which the Committee will be aware at once. We have another objection, and that is that the larger issues of this question are raised by an Amendment which the Chair, I think, directed should be moved as a new Clause. If we have to make State grants in aid of people in distress, they should be made openly, so that everybody knows exactly what we are doing, and they should not be conveyed by remissions of taxation, so that nobody knows the amount of the assistance which is given. To accede to this request would be to give a most trifling assistance in any single case, and I think this matter might be discussed on the larger issue when we reach the new Clause dealing with this question.

Mr. BOTTOMLEY

I have not troubled the Committee so far in these discussions because, as a fairly old Parliamentary hand, I prefer to wait for the Report stage and then dish up the lessons I have learned. On this proposal, I desire most heartily to support the Government. It was always a mystery to me that the Government should have doubled the duty upon cheques or in other words should have added 100 per cent. to the tax which a man who pays an account has to pay while leaving the person receiving the money alone. Although I am aware that suggestions now do not account for very much, I would like to suggest to the right hon. Gentleman that he might go even further in this direction, and make the receipt stamp duty an ad valorem duty, so that the person receiving a large amount would pay more than the person receiving a small amount. My experience is that when a person is receiving payment of an account he is not so very particular as to the amount of the stamp.

I am not going to follow what has been said by one of the leaders of one of the oppositions in regard to the tax upon charitable subscriptions. It has been said by the Chancellor of the Exchequer that a subscription to the independent Liberal party in this House might come under the head of a charity, and would carry the full receipt stamp. Might I suggest that subscriptions to the distressed managers of the Coalition Government should come into the same category? I was delighted to hear the right hon. Gentleman say that all these payments should be open and above-board and should bear the full duty upon them. I wish to add in conclusion that whilst the Independent Liberal party may be prepared to receive subscriptions and give receipts with a full stamp, there is another party in this House which receives no subscriptions and consequently gives no receipts. I hope the right hon. Gentleman will consent to make this an ad valorem duty such as other countries have, and I am sure it would bring in an enormous income.

Mr. JOHN GUEST

My objection to this duty is somewhat different to those which have been raised. I do not think it matters much whether the duty is 1d. or 2d., because it is only another addition to the cost of living, and a 2d. receipt stamp will bear very heavily on the working classes of this country. You have to bear in mind that you are doing this at a time when a great many accounts which in past years would have entirely escaped will be brought into this tax. I think the receipts from this source of revenue would have been added to very materially by the increased number of accounts without the imposition of the double stamp. All this taxation comes back to the consumer, and it is taken into account in making out the Bill. I think the Chancellor of the Exchequer might reconsider this proposal as I feel sure that he would derive from the present rate of the stamp quite as much as he will get from the increased stamp duty.

Sir H. NIELD

I regret that the activities of my hon. Friends while I was out at dinner have been so great that was surprised to find that my Amendment had been ruled out of Order. I understand that—

The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN

We cannot now go back to that question.

Sir H. NIELD

I was only making a reference to it.

The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN

The hon. Member must address himself to the Question put from the Chair.

Sir H. NIELD

I wish to express my regret that the Chancellor of the Exchequer has not seen his way to adopt the suggestions which I made.

Clauses 32 (Stamp duty on scrip certificates, etc.), 33 (Stamp duty on transfers of stocks and marketable securities), and 34 (Stamp duty on transfer of certain Colonial and Foreign stocks) ordered to stand part of the Bill.