The Customs and Inland Revenue Act 1878, sec. 13, enacts-‘With respect to the duties on inhabited houses . . the following provisions shall have effect-(1) Where any house, being one property, shall be divided into and let in different tenements, and any of such tenements are occupied solely for the purposes of any trade or business, or of any profession or calling by which the occupier seeks a livelihood or profit, or are unoccupied, the person chargeable as occupier of the house shall be at liberty to give notice in writing, at any time during the year of assessment, to the surveyor of taxes for the parish or place in which the house is situate, stating therein the facts; and after the receipt of such notice by the surveyor the Commissioners acting in the execution of the Acts relating to the inhabited-house duties shall, Upon proof of the facts to their satisfaction, grant relief for the amount of duty charged in the assessment, so as to confine the same to the duty on the value according to which the house should, in their opinion, have been assessed, if it had been a house comprising only the tenements other than such as are occupied as aforesaid or are unoccupied.’
Held (diss Lord Sumner) that a single apartment, access to which was obtained by a door opening from a passage leading from an internal staircase, might be a ‘different tenement.’
Circumstances in which held, sustaining judgment of the First Division which reversed the finding of the Commissioners, that premises fell within the terms of the section and were entitled to exemption.
Judges:
Earl Loreburn, Lord Atkinson, Lord Parker, and Lord Sumner
Citations:
[1915] UKHL 713, [1915] UKHL TC – 6 – 590, [1915] AC 922, 6 TC 590, 52 SLR 713
Links:
Jurisdiction:
Scotland
Rating
Updated: 26 April 2022; Ref: scu.620685