§ Before coining to my main proposals, I turn for a moment to certain other matters, on which I contemplate introducing legislation. For a long time past the question of Income Tax evasion has been an increasingly serious problem. It was the subject of a number of important and valuable recommendations by the Royal Commission on the Income Tax. It is, moreover, a matter on which, I think 1 may safely say, there is practical unanimity amongst all right-thinking citizens in the feeling that it is especially necessary, at a time when taxation is unfortunately at so high a rate, that everything possible should be done to discourage and punish that small minority of persons who fraudulently evade the liability imposed.upon them by Parliament, and in so doing cast an additional burden on the shoulders of their honest fellow taxpayers. I shall not ask Parliament to deal with all the recommendations of the Royal Commission, but I select for this Finance Bill a few of the more important, proposals. In doing so, however, I sincerely trust I shall give no ground for any expectation that the remaining recommendations can be regarded as unlikely to find a place on the Statute Book at a future date as opportunity arises.
§ Briefly, the proposals which I shall put before the House in this connection are the extension to six years of the existing three years time limit for the making of Income Tax assessments and surcharges, and a similar extension of the time limit for the recovery of the statutory penalties, together with an increase in the amount of certain of the smaller penalties. At the same time, I shall propose a corresponding extension to six years of the existing three years time limit for claims for repayments in cases where no specific time limit is prescribed by the Income Tax Acts. Among other matters which require legislation, I would briefly mention an alteration which I shall propose in the law governing the assessment of life insurance companies to Income Tax, and a rectification of the machinery 1734 for collecting Income Tax from certain pensioners and certain servants of the Crown, employed abroad, who from time to time become chargeable to tax here in respect of leave pay, and the like. A short provision will also be required to rectify for the future a flaw in Estate Duty law revealed by a recent decision of the Law Courts. I shall also include in the Finance Bill certain minor provisions of a technical kind relating to debt, some of them consequent on the American settlement.