HC Deb 16 July 1947 vol 440 cc549-50
The Solicitor-General

I beg to move, in page 75, line 16, at end, to insert: Provided that if the person carrying on the trade or business so elects as respects any payment or payments to which paragraph (iii) of sub-paragraph (a) of this paragraph applies and as respects which the conditions specified in this paragraph are fulfilled but as respects which an election under paragraph (ii) of the proviso to Subsection (1) of Section twenty-three of the Finance Act, 1943, has not been made, the like consequences shall follow under this paragraph as would have followed thereunder it such an election had been made (and, in a case in which there was not in fact a right to make such an election, if there had been such a right). This is a slightly complicated Amendment which is designed to meet the point made during the Committee stage by the hon. and gallant Member for New Forest and Christchurch (Colonel Crosthwaite-

54 & 55 Vict., c. 39. The Stamp Act, 1891. In section eighteen the words "court, inn"; section twenty-one except as respects persons admitted as members of one of the Inns of Court in England before the passing of this Act; section twenty-six; in the First Schedule, the first, third, fourth, fifth, sixth and seventh of the headings relating to "Admissions," and the headings "Commission to act as a notary public in Scotland," "Faculty, Licence, Commission or Dispensation," and "Licence to act as a notary public."
63 & 64 Vict., C. 14. The Colonial Solicitors Act 1900 In section one the words "stamp duties and."

This and the succeeding Amendment in line 38, deal with the same matter They make Amendments in the repeal Schedule, which are consequential on the new Clause dealing with the duties on admission as Eyre). He complained that the Bill as it stood dealt unfairly with schemes under which payments were made for back services. Under the provisions of Section 23 of the Act of 1943 and the Seventh Schedule of that Act, where you have a payment made in respect of back services during the Excess Profits Tax period, you can either have the payment disallowed as a deduction, or you can have one of two options. One option is to have the payment spread back over periods in the past, during the period in which the back service was rendered, and treated as payment in those periods. The other option is to have the back payments spread forward over 20 years. The second option is only available in the case of payment made for back service when these payments were made before 1943. The point made by the hon. and gallant Gentleman during the Committee stage, was that it is not justifiable now that that forward-spreading option should exist only in the case of payments made before 1943. This Amendment says that that option to spread forward shall be available, not only in the case of pre-1943 payments, but also in the case of post-1943 payments made during the Excess Profits Tax period.

Colonel Crosthwaite-Eyre

I would like to thank the hon. and learned Gentleman for introducing this Amendment, which I think covers a real deficiency in the Bill, as it existed before, in the case of payments for back service before 1943.

Amendment agreed to.

Schedule, as amended, agreed to.