THE LAND TAX INIQUITY.
[To THE EDITOR 07 THE " SPECITETOL']
Sra,—You have done a public service by setting forth the effect of the letters which have passed between Mr. Holland and one of the District Valuers. That officer's admission that it is impossible to explain the working of the Finance Act by correspondence—i.e., in writing—is, of course, the plain, unvarnished truth, but it will come as something of a shock to Mr. Lloyd George's supporters. Your suggestion that the valuation officers have a general instruction to raise as much money as they can is one which no solicitor of position will dispute; and I wish to supplement it by pointing out that these gentlemen are as a body the very persons to carry out such an instruction without any of the scruples which would weigh with sivil servants of the ordinary type. The responsible officers of our taxing departments were until recently men who had from their boyhood upward been in a position of absolute security as regards their livelihood. They had, moreover, been steeped from the beginning in the civil service tradition that the Crown must be scrupulously fair to the subject, and that every reasonable assumption in his favour must be made. This is, of course, bare justice ; for, in the event of a conflict arising, there is on one side the State with its boundless resources, legal and financial, and on the other a private individual, whose means in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred are not sufficient to enable him to carry his grievance to the Jaw courts. It is no exaggeration to say that it is better for the State to under-tax twenty of its subjects by giving them the benefit of a doubt—even a shadow of doubt—than to over-tax one because he cannot afford to fight. But our valuation officers are not civil servants of the old-fashioned type. They are men of ripe age, called in from outside, and throughout their previous careers it has been their business to act as partisans and to make the best possible bargains for their employers. This is bad enough, but worse remains behind. Their only chance of improving their positions, perhaps in some cases their only chance of continuing in office at all, lies in their making the Land Taxes bring in money.
It is to be hoped that Mr. Holland will consult the Land U nion as advised by you. Every landowner, great or small, ought to join it, for as things stand the small property owner has no other refuge against oppression. We who practise the law know that most provisional valuations are unfair and ought to be objected to ; but the owner of a single house—or of two or three small houses—can take no action if, as is often the case, he be a man of small means. He may know what his property is worth, and thus be conscious that the District ✓ aluer is cheating him, but he is ignorant of the procedure to be followed, and he cannot afford legal advice. The common form Notice of Objection under the Finance Act is really such a simple document that if you, Sir, were to publish it in your columns, any small-property owner dissatisfied with his Pro- visional Valuation could in ten minutes adapt the form to his own case and make a copy for service on the District Valuer. In so doing he would benefit not only himself, but also the whole body of landowners. The District Valuers and their subordinates are already bogged up to the neck. Even official demands for information cannot be dealt with promptly. Such is the state of congestion that deeds remain unstamped for months if Somerset House has to consult a District Valuer. In these circumstances the further burden of a load of unanticipated Objections would make it practically impossible for the Valuers to get many values settled during the existence of the present Government; and in this con- nexion we must not forget that every week's delay makes their task of valuing, as on April 30th, 1909, the more difficult. The following scrap of dialogue, which I believe to be authentic, sheds a flood of light on the state of affairs as seen from within. "But, my dear," said an old lady last autumn to the betrothed of a Land Valuation officer, "if he has only a tem. porary appointment, isn't it a little rash of you to get married?" "Oh, that's all right," was the answer. "He says things are in such a muddle that he's safe for twenty years."
Previous page
