Bureaucracy and Justice
SIR,—I am not an important person, nor ordinarily concerned with surtax, but chanced to emerge from retirement to do a salaried Government job, by request, for the fatal year of the "Special Contribution," so called, remaining blissfully unaware of liability to this exaction until April 2nd, 1949, when I received a demand from the Special Commissioners for retrospective payment of what was to me a staggering sum under this head. The notice stated that any appeal must be made within 28 days. As the figures appeared to me erroneous in one respect, I duly appealed on April 19th. The reply came in four months, dated August 17th. I replied on August 22nd; and on September 9th, as advised by a pro- fessional accountant, I sent a cheque for the sum demanded. On November 28th the Special Commissioners sent me a demand, no great sum, but to cover "252 days' interest at 2 per cent." (i.e. from January 1st to September 9th). My respectful challenge of this " interest " has now been answered, with unusual alacrity, by a statement that this charge "is mandatory" and that the Commissioners have no power to adjust it "even where, as in your case, the Notice of Assessment was not sent to you until April, 1949." So, because the authorities, for whatever reason, did not, or could not, notify the victims (they admit, in their last letter, "many such cases ") at the proper date, we have to pay " interest " on their delay durtin (in my case) at the very least 90 days from the datum line, January 1st, to the issue of their first demand, and for a further 110 days during which they chose not to answer a genuine appeal suggested by themselves in print as allowable within 28 days.
Is not this a case where equity and the law (i.e. Section 54 (3), Finance Act, 1948) palpably collide? How could a victim pay on January 1st when no request for payment had been made? And what justice is there in fining him for not knowing what he could not possibly know until from the chaos of the 'income-tax office a belated demand at last emerged? By even further procrastination the Commissioners could have increased my period for which interest is " legally " due; so ought I to be grateful that they did not wait until May or later ?—Yours faith-
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