Finance (1909-10) Act 1910

16 Duty on site value of undeveloped land.

(1) Subject to the provisions of this Part of this Act, there shall be charged, levied, and paid for the financial year ending the thirty-first day of March nineteen hundred and ten, and every subsequent financial year in respect of the site value of undeveloped land a duty, called undeveloped land duty, at the rate of one halfpenny for every twenty shillings of that site value.

(2) For the purposes of this Part of this Act, land shall be deemed to be undeveloped land if it has not been developed by the erection of dwelling-houses or of buildings for the purposes of any business, trade, or industry other than agriculture (but including glasshouses or greenhouses), or is not otherwise used bonâ fide for any business, trade, or industry other than agriculture:

Provided that—

(a) Where any land having been so developed or used reverts to the condition of undeveloped land owing to the buildings becoming derelict, or owing to the land ceasing to be used for any business, trade, or industry other than agriculture, it shall, on the expiration of one year after the buildings have so-become derelict or the land ceases to be so used, as the case may be, be treated as undeveloped land for the purposes of undeveloped land duty until it is again so developed or used ; and

(b) Where the owner of any land included in any scheme of land development shows that he or his predecessors in title have, with a view to the land being developed or used as aforesaid, incurred expenditure on roads (including paving, curbing, metalling, and other works in connexion with roads) or sewers, that land shall, to the extent of one acre for every complete hundred pounds of that expenditure, for the purposes of this section, be treated as land so developed or used although it is not for the time being actually so developed or used, but, for the purposes of this provision, no expenditure shall be taken into account if ten years have elapsed since the date of the expenditure, or if after the date of the expenditure the land having been developed reverts to the condition of undeveloped land, and in a case where the amount of the expenditure does not cover the whole of the land included in the scheme of land development, the part of the land to be treated as land developed or used as aforesaid shall be determined by the Commissioners as being the land with a view to the development or use of which as aforesaid the expenditure has been in the main incurred.

(3) For the purposes of undeveloped land duty, the site value of undeveloped land shall be taken to be the value adopted as the original site value or, where the site value has been ascertained under any subsequent periodical valuation of undeveloped land for the time being in force, the site value as so ascertained :

Provided that where increment value duty has been paid in respect of the increment value of any undeveloped land, the site value of that land shall, for the purposes of the assessment and collection of undeveloped land duty, be reduced by a sum equal to five times the amount paid as increment value duty.

(4) For the purposes of undeveloped land duty undeveloped land does not include the minerals.