The Sun.
London, England, 1845-03-12 00:00:00

SOCIETIES.

On the motion that the order of the day be read,
Mr. E. ELLICE, jun., said he wished to call the
attention of the Right Hon. Gentleman the Chan-
cellor of the Exchequer to a class of cases which
ap-
parently ought not to come under the operation of
the income-tax—he meant provident societies, whose
income was under 1501. He knew of a society which
had been established upwards of a century for
granting pensions to widows and orphans.
That society had been charged with the tax,
although the income of the society was under 1501.,
which was derived from investments in land and
loans. The managers of the society appealed to the
Assistant-Commissioners, but they dismissed the ap-
peal on the ground that the property was not vested
in Government securities. He (Mr. Ellice) had
looked into the Act and there, certainly, he found a
clause to the effect, that if the property was not so in-
vested it should not be exempt from the tax. In
other cases the parties might have the drawback ;
but in this case that could not be done, because the
payments of the society were made in sums of from
ss. to 51. He now asked the Chancellor of the Ex-
chequer whether it was contemplated by the Govern-
ment to exempt societies established for purely bene-
volent purposes ?
The CHANCELLOR of the EXCHEQUER said
that the clause to which the lion. Gentleman referred
was inserted for the purpose of exempting benevolent
societies which were enrolled according to the Act of
Parliament. But in cases where the societies were
only voluntary, and their prcperty was invested
in mortgages and such securities, it was.
very difficult to provide an exemption. Ile
had only received the Hon. Gentleman's notice
about an hour before he came down to the House, and
he immediately communicated with the department to
which the notice referred, and he would take care
that measures should be taken for affording relief, and
it was only in consequence of the construction of the
law that a remedy had not been already given.
Mr. ELLICE said the reason he had not com-
municated with the Right Hon. Gentleman before
was that he had only received the case within the
last few days.
Mr4,T. DUNCOMBE wished to call the atten-
tion of the Right Honourable Gentleman to
another case. It was known that the legacy-
duty department and the assessment to the
income and property-tax were carried on under
the same Commissioners, viz., the Stamps and Taxes'
Commissioners. Now supposing a person left another
an annuity of 1,0001. a year, and the person to whom
the annuity was left was sixty-four years of age,
according to the tables of the officers of the legacy
department, that annuity, so granted, was worth 8,0301.
The charge on that individual, not being a relation by
blood, would be of course 10 per cent., amounting to
8301. To pay that he was allowed four years' thereby
reducing his income in round numbers to 8001. a year.
Now any one would suppose when the assessment to
the property and income-tax was made, that he would
only have to pay 8001. a year ; such, however,
was not the case, for he was assessed at one
thousand pounds a year. Now that appeared to
him to be a palpable injustice, and he trusted the
Right Hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exche-
quer would give instructions to have that injustice re-
medied. He wished to ask the Right Hon. Gentle-
man another question. He understood that since the
property-tax had been established, there had been at
the office of the Commissioners of Stamps and Taxes,
for the purpose of making assessments to the
income-tax, a copy of the Bank of England Dividend
Book. Now, it had always been supposed that was a
secret record kept by the Bank of England only.
[The Hon. Member was proceeding when he was
called to order by the Speaker.] He wished to know
whether the documents to which he had alluded were
actually sent to the Stamp-office ?
The CHANCELLOR of the EXCHEQUER said
that the documents were not sent to the Stamp-office.