§ The Solicitor-GeneralI beg to move, in page 67, line 27, at the end, to insert:
and that person shall comply with the requirement within one month from the date of the notice.This Amendment seeks to remedy a minor defect in Clause 61, in that the Clause did not specify the period of time within which notice served on a person had to be complied with.
§ Amendment agreed to.
§ The Solicitor-GeneralI beg to move, in page 67, line 43, at the end, to insert: 1446
and(c) the notice shall not require any return of profits or losses for, or other particulars relating to, any period ending before the first day of January, nineteen hundred and forty-seven, except such returns and particulars as are required for the purposes of the Eighth Schedule to this Act or of paragraph 8 or paragraph 11 of the Ninth Schedule to this Act.This Amendment seeks to meet the point which was made by the right hon. and learned Member for Neepsend (Sir F. Soskice). He drew attention to the fact that there was no limit to the period for which the Inland Revenue authorities might go back in seeking information. As he knows, we had some discussion upon this in Committee. We have now sought to provide that the authorities shall not require any return of profits relating to any period ending before 1st January, 1947, except in three particular instances.One is for the purposes of determining the net assets where the standard is based on net assets under Clause 36 (4, c), where it may be necessary to ask for the purchase price of assets bought many years ago. The second category, which is in relation to paragraph 8 of the Ninth 1447 Schedule, deals with the spreading of profits on long-term contracts, where it may be necessary to consider contracts begun long before 1947. The third category is in relation to paragraph 11 of the same Schedule, for the application of which it will be necessary to ask for particulars of repairs carried out in the years 1940–49.
§ 3.45 a.m.
§ Sir F. SoskiceI thank the right hon. and learned Gentleman for having repented of his rather nefarious purpose of taking power to require companies to make returns for their undertakings for 200 and 300 years. They still have to do that in regard to three categories of cases.
§ Amendment agreed to.
§ The Solicitor-GeneralI beg to move, in page 68, line 2, to leave out from "tax," to the end of line 4.
This Amendment was tabled during the Committee stage by the hon. and learned Member for Kettering (Mr. Mitchison). Unfortunately it was not called, but he was told that if it had been it would have been accepted.
§ Mr. MitchisonI thank the Solicitor-General.
§ Amendment agreed to.