Finance Act 1949

37 Stabilisation of charge for tax, and procedure for assessment

(1) Land tax shall remain chargeable where, and only where, it was chargeable on a property for the land tax year 1948-49 (hereafter in this section referred to as "the basic year"), and only in so far as the property has not been exonerated therefrom by this Act or by the redemption of the tax, whether under this Act or otherwise; and the amount of the tax chargeable for any subsequent year (hereafter in this Part of this Act referred to as " the annual charge") shall be determined in accordance with the following provisions of this section.

(2) The amount fixed as that of the land tax attributable to any property for the basic year shall be the annual charge for the property subject to the provision hereafter made in this section for reduction and apportionment.

(3) Where in any land tax parish there was in the basic year a surplus of the aggregate charge over the parish quota, the annual charge for any property in that parish shall be reduced so as to bear to the amount mentioned in the last foregoing subsection the same proportion as the amount of that quota, reduced by one twenty-fifth of the surplus, bears to the amount of that aggregate charge. In this subsection the expressions " parish quota " and " aggregate charge" mean respectively, in relation to any land tax parish, the amount of the unredeemed quota of land tax charged against the parish and the amount assessed in the parish on account of that quota.

(4) Subject to the following provisions of this Act, land tax for land tax years after the year 1949-50 shall be payable on assessments made for that year, and assessments shall not be made for land tax years after that year.

(5) The annual charge for any property may be apportioned, on an assessment made for the land tax year 1949-50 or any subsequent year, between any part of the property which at the beginning of the year in question is separately owned or occupied and the remainder thereof, and (subject to any further assessment under this or the next following subsection) for that and subsequent years the amount so apportioned to any part of the property shall be the annual charge for that part and the tax shall be payable on that assessment accordingly.

(6) Where it is shown that—

(a) in the basic year any mine or quarry, or the right to any tolls, was assessed to land tax as a separate property; and

(b) in the land tax year 1949-50 or any subsequent year the rateable value of the property or, if the annual charge for the property has been apportioned, of a part thereof separately assessed to land tax is less than in the basic year ;

then for the year in question the annual charge for the property or for that part thereof, as the case may be, shall be reduced on an assessment made for that year, so that the annual charge and the rateable value in question shall bear the same proportion to one another in that year as those of the property did in the basic year, and the tax shall be payable on that assessment accordingly.

(7) For the purposes of the last foregoing subsection, references to the rateable value of any property in a land tax year shall be taken as referring to the valuation list as in force immediately after the beginning of the corresponding rating year, with any necessary apportionment of the values shown therein.

(8) The assessments for the land tax year 1949-50 and any subsequent assessment shall be made by the inspector of taxes, and when so made shall be of the same effect as if signed and allowed by the land tax commissioners:

Provided that any person aggrieved by an assessment so made, or by a refusal of the inspector of taxes to make an assessment for the purpose of an apportionment or reduction of the annual charge as provided by this Part of this Act, may appeal within the prescribed time and in the prescribed manner to the land tax commissioners.

(9) Section one hundred and sixty-seven of the Land Tax Redemption Act, 1802, and the third rule in Schedule E to the Land Tax Redemption Act, 1813 (which relate to default in making payment for the voluntary redemption of land tax), shall cease to have effect in so far as they would invalidate any contract for redemption or would revive the land tax redeemed by such a contract; and section thirty-three of the Taxes Management Act, 1880 (which provides that assessments and other documents relating to land tax shall belong to and be kept by the land tax commissioners), shall also cease to have effect.