I move amendment No. 1:—
Before Section 3 to insert a new section as follows:—
(1) Where in any year of assessment a person sustains a loss in any transaction or activity, whether he was engaged therein solely or in partnership, being a transaction or activity of such a nature that, if any profits had arisen therefrom, he would have been liable to be assessed in respect thereof under Case VI of Schedule D, he may claim that the amount of the loss sustained by him shall, as far as may be, be deducted from or set off against the amount of any profits or gains arising from any transaction or activity in respect of which he is assessed for that year under the said Case VI, and that any portion of the loss for which relief is not so given shall, as far as may be, be carried forward and deducted from or set off against the amount of any profits or gains arising from any transaction or activity in respect of which he is assessed under the said Case VI for any of the six following years of assessment.
(2) In the application of this section to a loss sustained by a partner in a partnership the expression "the amount of any profits or gains arising from any transaction or activity in respect of which he is assessed" shall be taken to mean in respect of any year such portion of the amount on which the partnership is assessed under Case VI in respect of any transaction or activity as he would be required under the Income-tax Acts to include in a return of his total income for that year.
(3) Any relief under this section by way of the carrying forward of the loss shall be given as far as possible from the first subsequent assessment in respect of any such profits or gains as aforesaid for any year within the said six following years, and, so far as it cannot be so given, then from the next such assessment and so on.
(4) The provisions of Section 34 of the Income-tax Act, 1918, shall apply to a loss under this section as if the loss were sustained in a trade.
(5) The provisions of this section shall extend so as to apply to a loss sustained in the year ended on the fifth day of April, nineteen hundred and forty-four.
As the House is aware assessments have been made recently in many cases under Case VI of Schedule D, where until now no attempt was made by the Revenue authorities to raise taxation. Assessments have been made on such bodies as the Incorporated Law Society, the Nursing Council and the Dental Board, based on the excess of their fees from registration over expenses. The amendment is not different from the method of ascertaining profits in trade. It proposes to give relief similar to that now enjoyed by trades. I believe that a somewhat similar provision has been in operation in the United Kingdom Finance Act since 1927. I ask the Minister if he can see his way to grant this relief to these bodies as the amount involved is not very large. These are mainly bodies which are not making any profits whatsoever, but are only trying to make running expenses. If they were put in the position of setting off losses against profits it would be a great benefit to them.