The Sun.
London, England, 1842-11-25 00:00:00

THE SUN, LONDON) FRIDAY MORNING, NOVEMBER 25, 1842,

SURCHARGES UNDER THE IN-
COME-TAX.

The extravagant and uncalled-for surcharges now
made under this impost by. the Income-tax Commis-
sioners or their agents, are causinggenerrl dissatisfac-
tion. Reference to past documents, relating to the
time when this noxious tax was first put into force
under Mr. Pitt, only show, that the British subject
stands entirely unprotected. The statement and sig-
nature of no man in the kingdom is respected, as if,
putting principle and honesty out of question, the
heavy penalties threatening him at the head of the
paper on which he renders his return, were not of
themselves sufficient to dragoon the most dishonest
into truth.
Mr. Pitt, in bringing forward his peoposition for
this tax, in 1799, stated at full, in the House of Com-
mons, the system upon which he considered it ad-
visable to proceed in the collection of the tax, the offi-
cers and machinery necessary to be employed in the
task, together with the general order of proceedure.
With regard to the matter of surcharges he expressed
himself thus :-
1 " Individuals might also state in what they had
been overcharged. If the Commissioners should not be
satisfied with the schedules given in, they should have,
in that case, the power to proceed to examinations by
oath; but they should have no compulsory power to '
make a man answer. They should neither have au-
thority to call for books, nor to examine any man's
clerks or agents. If, however, the party examined
should withhold any information on these points, it
should rest with the Commissioners to form their
own opinion, and their judgment should be final, un -
less the party chose to appeal to the higher Court of
the Commissioners. But even in that case no books
or papers should be examined. If the party should
be unwilling to produce those papers, he must acquiesce
in the decision which the Commissioners should come
to upon such other information as it might be in their
power to obtain. Such information the Commissioners
should be strictly sworn not to disclose, nor to avail
themselves of it for any purpose separate from the
execution of the Act. *lf, however, any information
should be made, upon oath, whicli the Commissioners
should think to be false, they might carry on a pro-
secution for perjury."
We now proceed to notice an action brought by the
Earl of Uxbridge' Messrs. Hughes, Williams, and
Grenfell, plaintiffs, and proprietors of very extensive
copper concerns, against one Teed, the defendant, an
inspector a the duties on income and property in the
City of London, for a wilful and vexatious surcharge
made by him, in respect of the plaintiffs' returns and
profits for the year. The matter came on for hearing
in the Court of King's Bench, before the Commis-
sioners, on the Ist of March, 1810.
The statement made on the occasion was, that Teed,
the defendant, without any information or ground of
surcharge, except the circumstance of plaintiffs having
the year before, made a much larger return of profits,
surcharged them the sum of 28,3571., several months
after their returns oT profits had been, upon examina-
tion, allowed by the additional Commissioners, and
the amount of ten per cent. duty thereon being paid
into the Bank, the inspector at the time he made such
a surcharge having been also aware that Mr. Gren-
fell, one of the plaintiffs, had appeared before, and
fully satisfied the Commissioners, previeusly to their
passiAg the assessment upon which this surcharge was
afterwards made.

Upon hearing, however, before the Commissioners
of appeal, the surcharge was disallowed, and the
plaintiff, considering it a question of great public im-
port to ascertain by the decision of a court of law,
whether the inspectors were justified in making sur-
charges, (as, observes the reporter of the case, is now
by far too much the practice, without any ground of
information for doing so, and taking the chance of
putting a proportion of the surcharge into their own
pockets, in event of its being in any degree disallowed),
brought this action.

It, however, appearing that one of the additional
Commissioners had advised the defendant to make

the surcharge, the Court was of opinion that it
removed from him all imputation of his having
made the surcharge vexatiously, and the plain-
tiff 3 were of course nonsuited. It was, not-
withstanding, distinctly understood, that a sur-
charge made without any ground besides an inspec-
tor's own presumption is unwarrantable, and would
be deemed vexatious.

From this decision it would appear that the subject
is not protected by the existing law against a false
surcharge, provided the inspecbr acts under the ad-
vice, or at the suggestion of any one of the Commis-
sioners, notwithstanding the assessment having been
made by the Commissioners before whom an investi-
gation respecting the same had previously taken place.
Mr. Horne Tooke's reasoning on this subject, as
conveyed in an answer of his to the Commissioners of
Income, upon their apprehending that his income was
greater than sixty pounds, the sum for which he re-
turned, strongly expresses itself to the point, and ex-
hibits in a plzin point of view the light in which an
Englishman's word is to be taken, by these fiscal
Judges :—" Sir," he wr'tes in answer to the Commis-
sioners Clerk, in the year that the impost was laid
on, " Sir, I have much more reason than the
Commissioners can have to be dissatisfied with the
smallness of my income. I have never yet in my
life disavowed, or had any occasion to re-consider,
any declaration which I had signed with my name.
But the Act of Parliament has removed all the decen-
cies which med to prevail between gentlemen, and
has given the Commissioners (shrouded under the
signature of their clerk) a right by law to tell me that
they have reason to believe that lam a liar. They
have also a right to demand from me, upon oath, the
particular circumstances of my private situation. In
obedience to the law, I am ready to attend them upon
this degrading occasion; so novel to Englishmen ; and.
to give them every explanation and satisfaction which
they may be pleased to require."

TOWN-COUNCIL PRocEEDINGS.
(From the Scotsman of Wednesday.)
PROPOSED VOTE OF CENSURE ON THE LORD PROVOST

Or EDINBURGH.
Mr. LOGAN—Before proceeding with the ordinary
business, I have to state that a number of my col-
leagues have imposed upon me the disagreeable duty
—but not the less a duty, because it is disagreeable—
of laying before the Council the customary notico of
the following motion :
" The Lord Provost having, on the evening of
at a dinner inti-
mately connected (as to its origin and purpose) with
Monday the 14th current, presided
certain proceedings at the Municipal Board, as to which
(as was well known) there existed a marked difference
of opinion among its members ; and, whilst so acting,
having himself publicly spoken, and permitted others
to speak, of the Magistrates and other Members of
Council in a way net merely offensive to their feelings
l
and derogatory to their character, but directly calcu-
lated most injuriously to affect their usefulness as
public functionaries—be it resolved, that this Council
is of opinion that, inasmuch as the Lord Provost is
their official president when met for the dispatch of
public business, and their recognised representative
aaac
conn
tnddi
fin
cgdg:ena
sna
sret deiati
fu,
oiontfri
eotoshnuaiai
sdla l,Cdl
oudoutitydnh
ce;airlca.ot;idcnahs i
av
osioon of hits official
ns
violation his
thereby forfeited the
Lordishifp,inl
Mr.
motion, during Navfhteicrhmhae king
his comments upon
this
asserted
that the Lord
Provost had make those remarks as a private indivi-
dual, and denouncing the attempt to interfere with
him as a gross infringement of the liberty of the sub-
muriALnNg'
jeet, moved "That in respect the motion of Mr.
Logan is an interference with the liberty of the subject,
and ultra vires of the Council, it be not entertained."
Mr. WIIYTE seconded the motion.
Finally the Council divided upon the question
—Mr. Macfarlan's motion or not--when it was
carried " not," by 18 to 10.
Against this decision Mr. MACFARLAN, protested,
and took instruments, in his own name and in the
name of all who should adhere to him, for reasons to
be afterwards given in.