HC Deb 09 November 1911 vol 30 c1954W
Mr. MALCOLM

asked the Secretary to the Treasury (1) whether the figures in Table 153 of the Report of the Inland Revenue Commissioners for the year ended 31st March, 1911, showing the number of assessments under Schedule E of the Income Tax on the salaries, etc., of Government officials in England, Scotland, and Ireland, respectively, are compiled on uniform data; and what is included under the expression salaries, etc.; (2) If the Treasury will furnish the Return of which notice has been given on to-day's Paper relative to Officials in Irish Public Departments?

Mr. McKINNON WOOD

With the hon. Member's permission I will answer these two questions together. The figures in Table 153 of the Inland Revenue Report relate to assessments made in public or "quasi-public" departments by the Commissioners appointed to execute the Acts in relation to the offices, employments, or pensions proper to their respective Departments. The expression salaries, etc., includes salaries, annuities, pensions, stipends, fees, wages, and perquisities or profits, assessable under the rules for charging tax. The figures for the three countries are not strictly comparable, as the salaries, etc., of public officers, such as those in the Post Office, Customs and Excise, and Inland Revenue, though serving in Scotland or Ireland, are assessable in London. A further difference arises from the fact that the figures for Ireland include,inter alia, in addition to Government officials' salaries, the emoluments of a large number of clergymen of the Church of Ireland paid by the representative body of the church, to which nothing in the figures for England and Scotland corresponds. The hon. Member will find full details of the assessments under Schedule E in Ireland for the year 1908–9 in my predecessor's answer to a question by the hon. Member for Mid-Armagh on 22nd February last, which will give him, I think, all the information he desires. The figures for 1910–11 are not yet fully available, and I could not, therefore, grant him the Return which he asks for.