Orders of the Day — Finance Bill

Part of the debate – in the House of Commons at 12:00 am on 23 May 1944.

Alert me about debates like this

Photo of Mr Ralph Assheton Mr Ralph Assheton , Rushcliffe 12:00, 23 May 1944

This does not affect Income Tax at all, but I have informed my hon. Friend already about that. There have been some modifications with regard to that question recently. I hope that this Clause will not have any adverse effect on attendances at church; I do not think it will. Clauses 8 and 9 raise no question of principle but they cure certain minor defects in the provisions of the Finance Act, 1942, with regard to the suspension of justices' liquor licences in cases where the licensee's business has been discontinued owing to the War.

In Part II, Clauses 10 to 18 deal with amendments to the Purchase Tax law, which four years' experience has shown to be desirable. Some of these Clauses—10, II and 14—are needed to block loopholes whereby tax is being evaded. Clause 13 enables the Treasury not merely to alter the limit below which registration is required for Purchase Tax purposes, as they can at present, but to abolish it altogether. The exemption limit has, I am sorry to say, been used by certain ingenious persons as a means of evading tax, but if the Treasury make an order under this Clause, it is subject to an affirmative Resolution of the House of Commons. Clause 15 gives justifiable relief to registered traders against the double charge of tax which may arise in certain exceptional circumstances, and it is a Clause entirely favourable to the subject. None of these Clauses dealing with the Purchase Tax extends the tax to any new classes of goods.

Parts III and IV deal with Income Tax. Clause 22 was explained by my right hon. and learned Friend, the Attorney General, on the Report stage of the Resolution. The effect of it is that where a British subject abroad claims relief in respect of personal allowances, he will be given the proportion of the personal allowances which his income liable to British Income Tax bears to his total income. Clause 23 deals with the sale of copyright for a lump sum, and that was mentioned by my right hon. Friend the Chancellor in his Budget speech. If the work took more than one year, but less than two years to produce, the lump sum payment will be spread over the year of receipt and the preceding year; and if it took over two years to produce it will be spread over three years, namely, the year of receipt and the two preceding years. The purpose of this spread is to avoid the hardship that would arise in the charge to tax if the lump sum payment were deemed to be income of the year of receipt although, in fact, it represented the work of a number of years.