INCOME TAX PROCEDURE (EMERGENCY PROVISIONS). (Hansard, 5 September 1939)

§ Captain Crookshank

I beg to move, That leave be give a to bring in a Bill to make temporary provision for the performance by other Commissioners or persons of any functions of the General Commissioners, the Additional Commissioners, or the Assessor for any division, area or parish. This Bill is a matter of machinery and its effect is to allow during the war period such modifications, to such extent as may be necessary, of the strictly territorial basis of the division of functions which obtains under the existing Income Tax Acts. If these functions are not performed the machinery of Income Tax collection comes to an end, and it will be realised that from the point of view of the Exchequer, at any rate, that is a major calamity which we cannot possibly allow to occur. The method with which it is proposed to deal with the organisation under war conditions is as follows. The pivot of the organisation are the General Commissioners, but there is no particular way of providing substitutes for them in the event of their ceasing to function. Should it so happen that for some reason or other, either generally or in some area of the country, the General Commissioners cannot function for any length of time, it would have serious consequences from the Revenue point of view.

The method proposed is to deal with this matter by substitution. Under the existing law it is possible for the taxpayer under Schedule D to exercise an option and have appeals and cases heard by Special Commissioners instead of Local Commissioners. Also he may elect under Schedule D to be assessed by the Special Commissioners. Both of these options, however, are subject to a limit of time. The Bill proposes that the Special Commissioners would be available as possible substitutes freely in the whole field where now they can only be used after the exercise of an option. 498 Another substitution which the Bill envisages is to take the General Commissioners acting for another division as substitutes for the commissioners for that division who, in the circumstances anticipated, might not be able to act. Probably, however, the Special Commissioners would be more frequently used as they are a mobile tribunal and therefore no doubt would do the work more conveniently. The Bill adopts both lines of substitution; and whichever is selected in any given case the governing factors must be the forwarding of the King's business and consideration for the taxpayer's convenience. The other functions which the Bill considers are those of the assessor and the Additional Commissioners. They have certain statutory duties to perform and the Bill provides that each Inspector of Taxes shall be available in an emergency as the supplementary, or, in the last resort, as an alternative for carrying on these duties. The Bill does not apply to Northern Ireland because they have another system there.