HC Deb 30 June 1931 vol 254 cc1085-8

(1) The tax chargeable on any person for any financial year shall be assessed by the Commissioners on him or on his personal representatives, and, subject as hereinafter provided, an assessment expressed to be made on any person (whether alone or jointly with others) shall, in the event of his death before the date of assessment, have effect as an assessment on his personal representatives:

Provided that, where the tax was chargeable on any person as joint owner and is by virtue of any trust or agreement payable in the event of his death by the survivor or survivors of the joint owners, an assessment expressed to be made on him shall, in that event, have effect as an assessment on the survivor or survivors.

(2) An assessment may be made at any time not later than three years after the end of the year of charge to which it relates.

(3) The tax assessed shall, if assessed on or before the first day of June next after The end of the year of charge, be payable to the Commissioners on the first day of July next following and, if assessed on some date later than the said first day of June, be so payable on the expiration of one month from the date of the assessment.

(4) Any person aggrieved by any assessment to tax made upon him may within forty-two days after the date of assessment appeal against the assessment to the High Court, or, if he so elects and the amount of The assessment does not exceed one hundred pounds, to the county court for the district in which the land unit in respect of which The assessment is made or any part of that unit is situate:

Provided that the value of the land unit in respect of which the tax was assessed shall not he called in question on an appeal under this Sub-section.

(5) The amount of any tax payable shall, notwithstanding any pending objection or appeal which may affect the assessment thereof, be recoverable as a debt due to His Majesty from the person on whom it is assessed.

(6) The amount of the tax assessed in respect of any land shall, as from the date on which it becomes payable, be a charge on that land, but, for the purposes of the Land Charges Act, 1925, no such charge shall he deemed to be a land charge of a class which may be registered under that Act, and for the purposes of the Land Registration Act, 1925, any such charge shall be deemed to be included among the interest specified in Sub section (1) of Section seventy of that Act:

Provided that any charge imposed by this Sub-section shall be void as against a purchaser of the estate by reference to which the ownership of the land was determined, being a purchaser for money or money's worth claiming by virtue of any disposition made before the amount of the tax in respect of which the charge arose became pay-abde and after the first day of January in the year of charge for which that tax is assessed.

(7) The Commissioners shall make such repayments and assessments (including additional assessments) as are necessary to give effect to the final settlement of any valuation or any apportionment of values made under the foregoing provisions of this Part of this Act, or to the final decision on any appeal.—[The Solicitor-General.]

Brought up, and read the First time.

The SOLICITOR - GENERAL (Sir Stafford Cripps)

I beg to move, "That the Clause be read a Second time."

4.0 p.m.

This Clause, which stands in the name of my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer is one which is very largely a question of drafting, but it also contains two very considerable concessions which have been put in as a result of the discussion which took place on the Committee stage. I will explain quite shortly, as it is rather a long Clause, what is the position. Sub-section (1) of the new Clause represents Clause 14, Sub-section (3) of the Bill as it was amended in Committee. A proviso, however, to that Sub-section has been added in order to meet the point raised by the hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for Rusholme (Sir B. Merriman) during the Committee stage. I think that he described it as a point of principle, but it was one which he had no time at the moment to explain. I promised at that stage to consider it, and to see whether any Clause or proviso could be inserted, and this is the proviso which we propose: Provided that, where the tax was chargeable on any person as joint owner and is by virtue of any trust or agreement payable in the event of his death by the survivor or survivors of the joint owners, an assessment expressed to be made on him shall, in that event, have effect as an assessment on the survivor or survivors. If I may explain that with reference to persons A and B, I think I can do so quite shortly. Suppose that the land, the unit, is owned by joint owners A and B as trustees, and that they are consequently chargeable with the tax for a particular financial year as being owners on the 1st of January in that year. The assessment is then made upon them, as owners on 1st January, about the following June, in order that the payment may be made in July. But if the assessment is made in June, after the 1st January, and A has died, leaving as executors X and Y, under the first part of Sub-section (1) the assessment will be made in the name of A and B and would rank as an assessment on X and Y as executors of A and B. Therefore, in the normal course, in the case of a trust, B in fact would be the person who would be the remaining trustee and who would thus become liable to the tax; and the provision is, therefore, made in the proviso that in such an event the assessment upon A does not operate as an assessment upon his executors, but upon B who is the survivor of the two trustees.

Sub-section (2) of the new Clause corresponds exactly with Sub-section (5) of Clause 14, except that an important concession has been made by reducing the period of years from six years to three years. There was discussion upon that in Committee by the hon. and gallant Member for Oxford (Captain Bourne), as regards the length of six years, as being a hardship upon a purchaser from an owner. That has been met, firstly, by dealing with the period of time and reducing it to three years, and, secondly, by a new proviso which is added in Sub-section (6) of the new Clause. Sub-sections (3) and (4) correspond with Sub-sections (4) and (6) of Clause 14, and are in exactly the words in which this Clause left the Committee. Sub-sections (5) and (6) correspond to Sub-section (7) of Clause 14, subject to certain modifications of the provisions which make the tax a charge upon the land. Sub-section (7) of Clause 14 as it now appears in the printed Bill provides that the tax is to be a charge on the land, and in Sub-section (6) of this new Clause the words are re-enacted, but with additional words which are inserted to make clear, first of all, that such charges do not require to be registered as a land charge. A question was raised during the Committee stage and it was thought wise to make it quite clear in the Bill itself what the position was as regards land registration. The proviso to Sub-section (6) is one which is intended to deal with the objections which I have already mentioned, as regards the liability of a purchaser for tax which might have been assessed upon the vendor, and it is in these terms: Provided that any charge imposed by this Sub-section shall be void as against a purchaser of the estate by reference to which the ownership of the land was determined, being a purchaser for money or money's worth claiming by virtue of any disposition made before the amount of the tax in respect of which the charge arose became payable and after the first day of January in the year of charge for which that tax is assessed. It will be seen that it provides that, where an owner sells his interest in the land, the charge on the land under this Sub-section shall not have effect against the purchaser for value in cases where it relates to his predecessor's tax which had not been assessed and had not fallen due at the date when the sale was completed. So that in any case where that is an outstanding liability which is unascertained it will not fall upon the purchaser. Sub-section (7) of the new Clause exactly reproduces Sub-section (8) of the old Clause 14. I think I have explained the position regarding the new matter and the old matter in the new Clause.

Clause added to the Bill.