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,J.'"'''"-—— PARLIAMENTARY…

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,J. "-—— PARLIAMENTARY PARS Ii INCREMENT VALUES DUTY. THE LIBERAL "CAVE." The fight, on the Budget is proceeding witb great spirit, but with exceeding slowness. A Parliamentary week of discussion has pushec through the Committee the first six lines of th first Clause, which read: "Subject to the pro visions of this part of this Act there shall b charged, levied, and paid on the increment value of any land a duty called increment value duty, at the rate of one pound for every full fiv* pounds of that value, and the duty, or a propor- tionate part thereof shall become due." Thert will be a speeding up presently, no doubt, but it is evident that the Opposition intend to fight the Bill stubbornly, clause by clause, and almos. word by word. TWENTY YEARS AFTER. One of the numerous amendments moved wher the House proceeded to deal with the sub-sec- tions of Clause I. was a proposal that the incre ment duty in the case of any transfer or sale oi land, or the grant of a lease, the iiieremeiitdut3 should not become due until after the 29th da) of April, 1930. The mover of the amendment declared that the postponement was necessarj in order to insure the vendor being able to show his title clear to the land. Mr. Lloyd George declined at once to accept this amendment. tht adoption of which would have made the Bill one to raise revenue not next year, or the year after, but in 1930. Even Captain Pretyman's assur- ance that by waiting he would get a large sum in increment instead of a lot of small sums failed to move the Chancellor of the Exchequer. DIFFICULTIES OF WORKING. Sir Edward Carson referred to the apprehen- sion among those concerned with the transfer of land as to what would happen under the Bill. Mr. Lloyd George admitted, he said, that incre- ment duty could not be assessed in relation to any transfer before the commencement of the Act, and unless all transfers were stopped for a considerable time after the passing, the Act would really be unworkable. Supposing a man proceeded to sell a house the day after the Act passed, the transaction must be delayed till several operations had taken place. He must get the original site valued, he must come to terms with the Commissioners over it, and, if he could not, he must appeal to the referee, and if any question of law arose, which was not improb- able, he might have to go to the Court of Appeal. Wiien that was done, the purchaser would not take the conveyance till he was satis- fied with regard to the increment duty. In the meantime, was the whole business to be hung up? Without a clear and definite statement, those engaged in this kind of business could not see how to carry on their business. MR. LLOYD GEORGE EXPLAINS. Mr. Lloyd George paid Sir Edward Carson the compliment of admitting the practical nature of the point, which, he said, was one the Government must face. Assuming that the Bill came into operation on November 1, and that on that day there was a transaction for the sale of land, the increment duty would also come into operation on that day. But there would be no site value fixed, which was necessary before they could arrive at the increment. What would happen would be that there would be no incre- ment value. Site value did not begin until after the Bill had passed therefore there could be no increment tax. The site value not having been fixed, it would be impossible for the Com- missioners to charge increment. Particulars would be sent to the Commissioners, who would stamp the document with a denoting stamp, indicating that full particulars had been given. If there had been very considerable increment in the meantime there would be no difficulty in I the Commissioners giving a denoting stamp, which would make the document an absolute title-deed without the necessity of .& further stamp. It was only proposed to charge the increment duty in cases in which the contract for sale was entered into after the passing of the Bill. If that was not clear, he would be pleased to insert words making it so. "TRIED IN GERMANY." Mr. Balfour declared that the effect of the Government's proposals was to make it expen- sive, disagreeable, and risky for an existing owner to part with his land to a willing pur- chaser. He did not understand how the Govern- ment could justify a proposal which hampered every transaction in land in order to extract a small portion of the value of the land trans- ferred. Sir William Robson, the Attorney- General, who followed Mr. Balfour, did not anticipate any serious difficulties. It was always the case, he said, when novelties were introduced that all sorts of possibilities were imagined. In this case, however, the Government had the experience of Germany to guide them. Nearly 350 municipalities in the Fatherland, he said, had adopted or were adopting the same system. There were cries of dissent at this, and Mr. Austen Chamberlain threw in the remark that the position in Germany is quite different. Lord Robert Cecil, too, declared that nothing like this Bill had ever been tried in Germany, where the case was vastly different, and raised none of the difficulties of this valuation. Whenever the Government got into any difficulty, said Lord Robert in derision, they 'considered that it was an all-sufficient reply to say that the Act had been tried in Germany and there was no diffi- culty there. A "CAVE AMENDMENT. There was a good deal of discussion upon an amendment to limit the operation of the tax to land only by omitting the words "or any interest in the land." By means of the closure and a majority of 163, this was rejected, and then came an interesting amendment moved by Sir J. Dickson-Poynder, the leader of the "cave of Liberals who object to certain of the Government proposals for taxation of land. There are several Ministerialists of weight and influence in the "cave/* and though their num- ber is not sufficient to make them a serious menace to the Government, they are sufficiently strong to make themselves rather disagreeable if they wish to do so. Sir J. Dickson-Poynder is one of the members who crossed from the Conservative to the Liberal side of the House in the closing years of the last Parliament. His was to confine the increment duty to the original granting of a lease of land, either agricultural or non-urban, when it is converted fol- building purposes. He endorsed the prin- eiple of an increment tax, but only where agri- cultural land had increased in value by being converted into building land. This amendment Nv' as also lost. »

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