§ Lord R. CECILasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer what is the gross amount annually received into the Treasury as the produce of the Land Tax; the cost of assessment and collection chargeable upon such tax, including the payments to assessors, collectors, and clerks to land tax commissioners, and for other incidental expenses; whether a Return can be presented showing the number of assessors, collectors, and clerks to commissioners and bodies of land tax commissioners now existing throughout England, Wales, and Scotland, as well as the number of land tax parishes in which an annual assessment is made, with the amount collected in each parish, the sums irrecoverable, and the cost of the maintenance and working of this machinery; and whether, seeing that the Land Tax in England, Wales, and Scotland is now reduced by redemption and exoneration from about 70W £1,800,000 in 1798 to about £670,000 at the present time, and in view of the large amount of fiscal machinery maintained in existence for the assessment, and collection of this small total, much of it in trifling sums, and of the cost necessarily involved, he will consider the advisability of obtaining the consent of Parliament to the abolition of the tax by compulsory redemption at the present rate of 25 years' purchase, either by one payment or by payments spread over a term of years?
Mr. YOUNGThe gross receipt of Land Tax in the financial year 1920–21 amounted to £684,871 16s. 7¼d. The amount paid into the Exchequer was £650,000. The administration of the Land Tax is inseparably bound up with that of other Inland Revenue duties, especially the Income Tax, and it is not possible to apportion the total cost of assessment and collection between the various duties. A return of the nature asked for, which 71W would extend to some 15,000 parishes, would involve an expense which would not be justified by the value of the information obtained. As regards the last part of the question, the amount of fiscal machinery maintained for the special purpose of the Land Tax and involving expenditure is very small, and no appreciable saving in the cost of administration would result from the compulsory redemption of the tax in the manner suggested.