I move: "That the Dáil agree with the Committee in said Resolution." This Resolution is designed to ensure that all the powers of the former Commissioners of Inland Revenue and the former Commissioners of Customs and Excise in relation to taxation were effectively transferred to the Revenue Commissioners in 1923. The Resolution also remedies a defect in paragraph 13 of the Revenue Commissioners' Order of 1923 which was intended to enable one Commissioner to act for the Board, but which did not fully effect its purpose.
I do not know whether the House is familiar with the circumstances which attended the transfer to the members of the Revenue Commissioners of the functions of the Commissioners of Customs and Excise and of the Inland Revenue Commissioners in 1923. These functions were transferred, or at least it was intended to transfer them by Order No. 2 of 1923. This order, the Revenue Commissioners Order (No. 2 of 1923) provided amongst other things as follows:—"A Board of Commissioners to be called and known as the Revenue Commissioners is hereby established to exercise in Saorstát Eireann (a) all the functions which were on the 6th day of December, 1921, exercisable in the area now comprised in Saorstát Eireann by the Commissioners of Inland Revenue, and (b) all the functions which were on the 6th day of December, 1921, exercisable in the area now comprised in Saorstát Eireann by the Commissioners of Customs and Excise."
Paragraph 8 of the same order provided that "All the jurisdictions, powers and duties which on the 6th day of December, 1921, were conferred or imposed by law on the Commissioners of Customs and Excise, are hereby respectively conferred and imposed on the Revenue Commissioners." Owing, it is understood, to a clerical error in copying, the words providing for the express transfer of the powers of the Commissioners of Inland Revenue were omitted from this paragraph.
Paragraph 8 of the Inland Revenue (Adaptation of Taxing Acts Order) (No. 4 of 1923) provided as follows:—"All the jurisdictions, powers and duties which on the 6th day of December, 1921, were conferred or imposed by law on the Commissioners of Inland Revenue are hereby respectively conferred and imposed on the Revenue Commissioners."
Some doubts, however, have been raised as to whether the powers and duties were effectively transferred, and it is considered better to put the matter beyond doubt by express legislation. Paragraph (1) of the Resolution is designed accordingly. Paragraph (1) recites that all the jurisdictions, powers and duties which were on the 6th December, 1921, vested in, exercisable by or incumbent on the Commissioners of Inland Revenue in relation to taxes and duties placed under their care and management or the Commissioners of Customs and Excise in relation to taxes and duties placed under their care and management became and were, on the 21st day of February, 1923, vested in, exercisable by, or incumbent on the Revenue Commissioners. That, in fact, is merely to copper-fasten the procedure which existed up to the present. When these arrangements were made they were made rather hurriedly. The words providing for the transfer of the jurisdictions, powers and duties of the Commissioners of Inland Revenue were omitted from paragraph 8 of the Revenue Commissioners Order, 1923.
When the Revenue Commissioners were constituted arrangements were made that a board of three commissioners should take over and discharge all the duties previously discharged by two boards, each consisting of five commissioners. It was realised at the time that with only three commissioners it would, in practice, be impossible to arrange that two should always be in attendance and the following paragraph was therefore inserted in the Revenue Commissioners Order (paragraph 13):—
In every case in which any order, decision, instrument or document is required by law to be signed by or to be under the hand of two or more Commissioners of Inland Revenue it shall be sufficient if such order, decision, instrument or document is signed by one Revenue Commissioner.
Paragraph 16 contains similar provisions as regards powers previously exercised by the Board of Customs and Excise. It was intended by means of these paragraphs to provide that one commissioner could act on behalf of the board or in effect constitute a quorum of the board. There was nothing particularly unusual in the provision. Section 2 of the Inland Revenue Regulation Act of 1890 enables the Board of Inland Revenue in England, consisting of five commissioners, to act by any two of their number and two commissioners constitute a board.
In a case recently before the courts it was held that assessments to excess profits duty made by one commissioner were not valid. Broadly speaking, the court decided that paragraph 13 of the Revenue Commissioners Order merely provided for orders or documents being signed by one commissioner but did not enable the formal acts of the Revenue Commissioners to be done by one commissioner. I should like at this stage to say that this is not intended to validate any of the assessments which were quashed by the court. That is clear from the terms of the Resolution. Furthermore, no attempt has been made since the date of the High Court decision to enforce payment of any excess profits duty assessment which had been made by one commissioner and in which duty was outstanding at the date of that decision. Where it was necessary to proceed on an assessment, that is, where settlement by agreement was not promptly reached, the original assessments were vacated and fresh assessments were made and signed by two commissioners. Numbers of formal acts required to be done by the commissioners, such as prescribing forms, ordering proceedings, etc., have been done by one commissioner, during the last 11 years and it is necessary to validate these acts. It is also considered necessary to validate excess profits assessments on which duty had been paid before the court decision mentioned above was given, so as to prevent taxpayers attempting to claim repayment of such duty.
On the general principle involved in the Resolution, it should be borne in mind that assessments by the Revenue Commissioners are subject to appeal; and that the Government that was in power in 1929 legislated to enable income tax assessments to be made not by the Revenue Commissioners, but by the inspector of taxes acting alone and to enable appeals to be heard by one special commissioner, that is, appeals from the assessments of such inspector of taxes. What was reasonable in the case of income tax is equally reasonable in the case of excess profits duty. That is the purport of the Resolution now before the House. The provisions are in fact designed to validate a practice which has prevailed for the past 11 years and to repair, where necessary, or where necessary to remedy the effects of the omission of certain words which it is understood, owing to a clerical error in copying, were omitted from the original Order of 1923.
