HC Deb 27 July 1938 vol 338 cc3116-7W
Mr. Haslam

asked the Financial Secretary to the Treasury whether ordnance maps are supplied to the assessors of Land Tax or to the clerk to the commissioners; and if he regards the arrangements for the assessment of this tax as satisfactory?

Captain Wallace

Ordnance maps are not supplied to assessors of Land Tax or to Clerks to Commissioners of Land Tax. The arrangements for the assessment of Land Tax work smoothly and I regard them as satisfactory.

Mr. Haslam

asked the Financial Secretary to the Treasury whether he will state the total amount paid to the assessors of Land Tax and the amount paid to clerks to the commissioners; and if there has been any alteration of these amounts since they were fixed some 50 years ago; and if it is possible to form any estimate of the cost of collection of this tax; and what was the cost before collection was centralised?

Captain Wallace

Appointments as Land Tax Assessors, which are made by the Land Tax Commissioners, are in many cases at the present time held by established civil servants who perform the duties as part of their functions in the Centralised Collection Service and are paid on Civil Service scales appropriate to the character of their duties as a whole.

In other cases the offices of Assessor of Land Tax and Assessor of Income Tax for the same area are with few exceptions held by the same person. Similarly, the offices of Clerk to the Land Tax Commissioners and Clerk to the Income Tax Commissioners are held by the same person. In both instances it is impossible to distinguish accurately the proportion of the total consolidated remuneration which is attributable solely to Land Tax duties.

It is not therefore possible to separate the amount paid to Assessors of Land Tax and Clerks to the Land Tax Commissioners as such.

With regard to the second part of the question, my hon. Friend presumably has in mind the statutory minimum laid down for Clerks to Commissioners of Land Tax by the Taxes (Regulation of Remuneration) Act, 1892. The clerks' present remuneration is normally based on the statutory minimum, with an appropriate addition, which is now consolidated with basic pay, to reflect the increased cost of living. There is no statutory minimum prescribed by law for Assessors of Land Tax, and changes in their remuneration have been made from time to time.

It is not possible to distinguish either at the present time or before the establishment of centralised collections the cost of collection of Land Tax from the cost of the duties of the Inland Revenue generally, as the administration of the tax is bound up with that of other duties.

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