View report page

43
they expressed their willingness to consider any specified
case. The Vestry therefore determined to seek the co-operation
of other local authorities in bringing the subject under
the notice of the Chancellor of the Exchequer by deputation.
The levying of Inhabited House Duty is not, strictly
speaking, a Vestry matter, hut as the anomalies referred to
affect a large proportion of the parishioners, the Vestry felt
fully justified in taking cognizance of tho subject. It is
believed that, through ignorance of the law, many ratepayers
submit to an excessive impost of the Duty, which might be
remedied by laying a statement of facts in each case before
the Surveyor of Taxes.
Broadly speaking, shops with dwelling houses attached are
assessed at 6d. in the pound, and private houses at 9d., while
premises used exclusively as offices or for business purposes
are exempt altogether. In order, however, to bring a shop
and dwelling house under the sixpenny duty, the business
must be carried on by the person liable to the duty. Again,
solicitors, milliners, dressmakers, &c., who use part of a
private house for business purposes, are assessed at 9d.;
lodging-house keepers are also charged 9d., while private
hotel keepers are assessed at 6d. These are some instances
of the anomalies in question.
For the information of such of the parishioners as may be
concerned, the following extracts are given from the Act of
Parliament, 41 Vic., cap. 16, sec. 13:—
Where any house, being one property, shall be divided into and
let in different tenements, and any of such tenements are
occupied solely for the purposes of any trade or business, or
of any profession or calling by which the occupier seeks a
livelihood or profit, or are unoccupied, the person chargeable
as occupier of the house shall bo at liberty to give notice in
writing, at any time during the year of assessment, to the
Surveyor of Taxes for the Parish or place in which the house