I move recommendation No. 1:—
Section 3, sub-section (8). To insert before the sub-section a new sub-section as follows:—
(8) This section shall not apply to tenements and rateable hereditaments valued after the 31st day of December, 1922, and accordingly tax under Schedule A of the Income Tax Act, 1918, shall be assessed and charged on such tenements and rateable hereditaments as if this section had not been enacted.
The section to which this is a recommendation is one which adds one-fourth to the valuation of buildings-for the purposes of income tax under Schedule A. What the recommendation asks the House to do is to say that that sub-section cannot apply to tenements and rateable hereditaments valued after the 31st day of December, 1922. A tax of five-fourths on the valuation of buildings is very objectionable. I must admit that there is a great deal to be said for the Minister's case. The valuation of nearly all buildings in town and country are very old. In most cases they are very likely too low, and owners of properties valued too low in the old valuations are not bearing their fair share of income tax. Admitting all that, the Minister has inserted a proviso that this sub-section is not to apply to the City of Waterford. That city was valued, I understand, in 1923. I have no doubt that the exclusion of the City of Waterford has been made by the Minister because it was just and equitable. The valuations in the City of Waterford are comparatively new valuations and, for tax purposes, under Schedule A, are probably perfectly proper and right. If it is right and just for Waterford, it is right and just for the rest of the country. If the House imposes this extra one-fourth on valuations for income tax purposes it will be doing a thing that it is not justified in doing. Therefore, the recommendation suggests that the section shall not apply to tenements and hereditaments valued after December 31st, 1922, the end of the year before the revaluation of Waterford.