HC Deb 26 June 1963 vol 679 cc1448-50
The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Mr. Anthony Barber)

I beg to move, in page 13, line 44, to leave out from "furniture" to the end of line 5 on page 14 and to insert: and tax in respect of the payment for its use is chargeable under Case VI of Schedule D, tax in respect of the rent shall be charged under Case VI of Schedule D unless the landlord, by notice in writing to the surveyor given within two years after the end of the year of assessment, requires that this provision shall not apply". This Amendment to Clause 15(4) fulfils an undertaking which I gave to hon. Members when we considered the Clause in Committee. It deals with a point raised by one of my hon. Friends. Clause 15(4), as the House will remember, is intended to ensure that where property is let furnished it is not necessary to make two assessments, one under Case VIII on the rent attributable to the bare accommodation and another under case VI on the balance attributable to the use of the furniture and any services, unless, of course, the landlord wants the rent to be assessed under Case VIII in order to take advantage of the provisions in Schedule 4.

This subsection was intended never to apply where the provision of services amounts to a trade assessable under Case I. In that event, an apportionment is necessary between the rent proper and the trading profit, since in the hands of an individual the trading profit is treated as earned income whereas the rent assessable under Case VIII is not treated as earned income. The Amendment makes it perfectly clear, that the only circumstances in which rents may be assessed under Case VI of Schedule D instead of Case VIII are where the property is let furnished and the payment for the use of

Provided that if before the 1st January in any year a person delivers a statement in writing to the surveyor—
(i) showing that since the beginning of the last preceding year of assessment he has ceased to possess one or more sources of income chargeable under Case VIII; and
(ii) giving the aggregate of the rents and receipts relevant for purposes of Case VIII to which he has become or is likely to become entitled in the current year; and
(iii) showing that that aggregate is less than the aggregate of such rents and receipts to which he became entitled in the last preceding year, and that it would not have been less if he had not ceased to possess the said source or sources,
then, if the surveyor is satisfied as to the correctness of the declaration, an assessment made on that person in the current year shall be made on an amount which bears to the amount arrived at under paragraph (a) of this subsection the same proportion as the said aggregate for the current year bears to the said aggregate for the last preceding year, and paragraph (b) of this subsection shall apply accordingly.
Mr. Deputy-Speaker (Sir William Anstruther-Gray)

In considering this Amendment, it will be possible to discuss also the three Amendments to it in the name of the hon. Member for Crosby (Mr. Graham Page), in line 3, leave out from "showing" to first "the" in line 6.

the furniture is assessable under Case VI as the law now stands.

The Amendment removes from subsection (4) all references to payment for services, and the law relating to such payments is consequently left unchanged.

I also promised in the course of the same debate that we would do our best to meet the situation about basing a Case VIII assessment on accounting periods rather than on tax years. The Revenue will certainly do this—it is an important point—in appropriate cases, as it has done in the past, in making excess rent assessments, but we thought it better not to introduce an Amendment on this point because the legislation would be quite complicated if we were to deal with all the possible sets of circumstances. I well remember that the hon. and learned Member for Kettering (Mr. Mitchison), who is not in the Chamber at the moment, pointed out in Committee, when this was considered, that there would be difficulties in, as it were, partial legislation, and we came to the conclusion that it was a matter that could better be dealt with in future, as in the past, as one of administration.

Amendment agreed to.