Finance Act 1950

PART I Provisions dealing with tax in respect of road vehicle chassis

1 (1) Purchase tax in respect of a road vehicle chassis shall be chargeable on the wholesale value of the chassis complete but without additions, and for the purposes of section twenty-one of the Finance (No. 2) Act, 1940 (which relates to the determination of wholesale value), any chassis in respect of which tax is chargeable shall be assumed to be in that state.

(2) The following shall be deemed to be additions to a chassis for the purposes of this paragraph, namely—

(a) a driver's cab;

(b) accumulators used for the purpose of the supply of power for propulsion;

(c) in the case of a chassis for a tractor or locomotive designed for use as a component of a composite vehicle, a turntable, coupling gear or equivalent mechanism.

(3) Subject to the last foregoing sub-paragraph, it shall be for the Commissioners to determine for any chassis or type of chassis what parts and accessories are, for the purposes of this paragraph, to be deemed to belong to a complete chassis or to be additions thereto, and what type of any part or accessory deemed to belong to a complete chassis a chassis lacking that part or accessory is to be treated for those purposes as having.

(4) In exercising their powers under the last foregoing sub-paragraph, the Commissioners shall wherever practicable have regard to any standard commercial specification for the type of chassis in question.

2 The fitting to a road vehicle chassis of items deemed to be additions thereto for the purposes of the foregoing paragraph shall not be treated as the application of a chargeable process.

3 (1) In relation to road vehicle chassis, the enactments relating to purchase tax shall have effect as if—

(a) any dealing with a goods vehicle (and in particular any purchase, appropriation or application, or importation thereof) were a dealing with the vehicle's chassis; and

(b) goods vehicles were chargeable goods for the purposes of any reference to a business of, or a business including, the selling, or the letting out on hire, of chargeable goods;

and the fact that a chassis forms part of a vehicle shall not affect the operation in relation to the chassis of references in the said enactments to goods resulting from the application of a process, if when the process is completed the vehicle is a goods vehicle.

(2) In this paragraph the expression "goods vehicle" means a mechanically propelled road vehicle constructed or adapted for use for the carriage or haulage of goods or burden of any description not forming part of the vehicle or necessary for its propulsion or equipment, but does not include—

(a) vehicles which are chargeable goods under Group 35 in Part I of the Eighth Schedule to the Finance Act, 1948;

(b) vehicles which are constructed or adapted mainly for the carriage of passengers but are exempt from purchase tax under paragraph (c) of that Group;

(c) vehicles of the following descriptions which are designed and permanently fitted solely or mainly for a function other than the carriage of passengers or goods—

(i) mobile cinemas, sound film production vehicles, television production vehicles and recording vans;

(ii) mobile canteens and shops, mobile clinics and travelling libraries;

(iii) mobile printing presses and other mobile workshops;

(iv) hearses;

(v) gully emptiers, road cleansing, road watering and refuse collecting vehicles;

(vi) travelling lavatories and wash places;

(vii) breakdown vehicles fitted with a jib crane;

(viii) engineering plant;

(d) tractors and locomotives, except tractors or locomotives designed for use as components of a composite vehicle;

(e) industrial and works trucks designed primarily for use in factories, docks, yards, railway stations or warehouses;

(f) wheeled vehicles which drive through all road wheels and are of less than 30 cwt. unladen weight;

(g) pedestrian controlled vehicles;

(h) caravans.

(3) The Treasury shall have power by order to amend sub-paragraph (2) of this paragraph, and subsections (3) to (6) of section twenty-one of the Finance Act, 1948 (which provide for approval or annulment by the House of Commons and other matters in the case of orders under that section), shall apply to orders under this sub-paragraph as they apply to those orders.

4 Where the Commissioners are satisfied—

(a) that purchase tax has become chargeable in respect of a road vehicle chassis;

(b) that the chassis has been used for the construction of a vehicle which is neither a goods vehicle within the meaning of the last foregoing paragraph nor a vehicle falling within paragraph (a) or (d) of sub-paragraph (2) of that paragraph; and

(c) that the chassis has not previously been used for the construction of a vehicle;

the purchase tax chargeable in respect of the chassis shall be remitted or, if it has been paid, shall be repaid.