Page images
PDF
EPUB

on the prescribed notice, carry his appeal to the special commissioners. Persons claiming exemption on incomes under £150 are, however, not entitled to appeal to the special commissioners (§ 130).

Disputes.-The general commissioners are authorized to settle all disputes between landlords and tenants, or any other persons, in relation to deductions from rents, feuduties, or other annual payments, or between existing and former occupants of lands or tenements, as to their respective proportions of duty; their decrees being enforced by the powers conferred on them for levying the assessment. Their judgments are final (§ 160).

Surcharges.-Inspectors and surveyors are to have access to returns and assessments, and may make surcharges where they think the amount is under-estimated (§ 161). On every surcharge allowed upon appeal for failure to deliver a declaration, or for giving an unsatisfactory one, the charge is to be treble the surcharged duty; but if a declaration is made satisfactory to the commissioners, and they think there has been reasonable cause of controversy, and that the party intended no fraud, they may allow the surcharge, remitting the whole or part of the treble duty (§ 162).

Change of Place.-When a person comes to reside in a new place, within the year, the inspector, &c., is to give him notice to make out and deliver, within fourteen days, a signed declaration, stating the place where he was assessed for the year, with a certificate of his assessment, or in default of that, a statement for the purpose of assessment. Neglect or falsehood renders the party liable to a penalty of £20. Where he has not been assessed in his former place, the commissioners may assess him as if he had resided in their district from the beginning (§ 177).

Frauds. A person removing without returning his statement, or before assessment, for the purpose of evasion, and a person removing without settling the instalments due by him, forfeits £20, besides the duties (§ 177). A person fraudulently changing his residence, or converting or assigning away his property, or rendering property temporarily unproductive, or managing by any contrivance to escape a genuine assessment, becomes liable to be assessed in treble the duty attempted to be evaded (§ 178). Persons giving false evidence are liable to the punishment of perjury (§ 180). Persons forging or altering any of the certificates or receipts, authorized by the act, are liable to transportation for fourteen years (§ 181).

No neglect to pay the tax in respect to a house or other building, is to deprive one of the elective franchise (§ 184).

The oaths of the commissioners and other officials, which enjoin secrecy, excepting as to such divulgements as are necessary for carrying out the act, are in Schedule F (§ 189). The matters to be contained in the several returns are enumerated in schedule G (§ 190).

CHAPTER IV.

EXCISE.

SECT. 1.-Commissioners and Officers.

THE Crown is empowered to appoint commissioners, not exceeding thirteen in number, for the collection and management of the excise-duties of the United Kingdom; they are subject to the directions of the Treasury. Previously to August 1834, there were assistant-commissioners for Scotland; but these are abolished, and their duties performed by the general board.2 The Treasury have the appointment of a comptroller and auditor for the United Kingdom. The commissioners appoint the proper collectors, officers, clerks, and others, for the collection of the duties, not exceeding the number fixed by a general order from the Treasury. They promote, suspend, and dismiss officers, and regulate their salaries, allowances, and expenses.4

3

No person, holding any office in connexion with the excise, is to deal in exciseable commodities, under penalty of forfeiture of his office, and incapacity to fill any other connected with the excise.5 Any officer connected with the excise who asks or takes a bribe directly or indirectly, or enters into an agreement to conceal or connive at any infringement of the excise laws, or to omit performing his duty, is liable to a penalty of £500, and to be rendered incapable of serving in any government office. The same pecuniary penalty is incurred by any individual who may corrupt or attempt to corrupt an officer to such breach of duty. When any such

1 7 & 8 Geo. IV. c. 53, §§ 1, 2.-2 4 & 5 Wm. IV. c. 51,'§ 1.-3 4 & 5 Vict. c. 20, § 14.-47 & 8 Geo. IV. c. 53, § 4.—5 Ibid. § 10.6 Ibid. § 12.

punishable transaction takes place between a private party and an officer connected with the excise, either party giving prior information which leads to the conviction of the other is indemnified.1 Where officers would share in penalties or forfeitures (see below), if they are found to have acted collusively, as above, or negligently, they lose their portion.2

5

SECT. 2.-Regulations as to Premises and Utensils. Entry. Every person carrying on business subject to the laws of excise, and obliged by any excise act to make entry of his premises or utensils, does so by giving an account according to the terms of the particular excise act, to the officer of the survey, to be entered in the general entry-book; the penalty for omission is £200.3 A person employing entered premises, &c., for other purposes than those for which they are entered, forfeits £100.4 No second entry can be made of premises in name of any one but a partner of the person in whose name the previous entry stands; but if any person vacate his premises without withdrawing his entry, the commissioners may consider the entry withdrawn, and permit a new one to be made. To be legal, the entry must be made by a person who has attained the age of twentyone, and by the real owner of the business; but whoever makes the entry, or uses the premises, is responsible. In the case of a joint-stock company or a corporation, entry must be made by the directors, or if they exceed four in number, by four of them at least. The directors so signing are personally liable for duties, penalties, &c. Entries by clerks or managers are not sufficient. To make the forfeitures correspond precisely with the entries directed to be made in the acts applicable to particular commodities, it is enacted, that when any stills, vats, coppers, or other utensils, are required by any act to be entered, and are not so, then the utensils, and their contents, and the effects on the premises, are forfeited. Every entered building, place, or utensil, must be distinguished by a number painted on a conspicuous part of it, and the proprietor must paint all fixed pipes, and describe their direction and purpose at the requisition of the surveyor, under penalty of £100.9 A book called a "specimen" may be deposited in any entered prem

1 7 & 8 Geo. IV. § 13.-2 Ibid. § 104.-3 4 & 5 Wm. IV. §§ 5, 6.4 Ibid. § 7.-5 Ibid. §§ 8, 9.-6 7 & 8 Geo. IV. c. 53, § 20.-7 4 & 5 Vict. c. 20, § 6.-8 Ibid. § 5.-9 7 & 8 Geo. IV. c. 53, § 21.

ises, for recording the entries of the officers who survey the premises, and any person other than an officer of excise secreting, carrying away, destroying, or making entries in, this book, is liable to a penalty of £200.1

Duties.-Persons carrying on business subject to excise regulations delaying to pay the duties when demanded forfeit double the value of the duties. The collector, on affidavit, may grant warrant for levying unpaid duties, in the same manner as penalties are levied (see below, Sect. 4), reporting to the commissioners, who may stay the proceedings or grant relief.3

4

Officers of excise are entitled to enter on premises used for any business subject to excise regulations, and to take account of and charge any duties they may find chargeable, at any time, by night or day; but if the entrance is to be made at any time between eleven at night and five in the morning, it must be by request, and in presence of a constable, unless a different rule be established by any excise act applicable to any particular commodity. For the security of the duties it is provided that "all stills, backs, vats, coppers, cisterns, tables, presses, machines, and machinery, vessels, utensils, implements, and articles for making or manufacturing or producing any such goods or commodities," are to be under a perpetual hypothec for duties, penalties, and forfeitures, in whatever hands they may come; but that where exciseable commodities have been taken account of and duty charged, if they be bona fide sold in the usual course of trade and delivered to the purchaser, before the teste on a writ of extent, or the issuing of any process for recovery of duties, they are safe in the purchaser's hands.5

SECT. 3.-Smuggling.

Any person connected with the manufacturing of exciseable commodities in unentered premises is liable in a penalty of £30, over and above the penalties which may be leviable on the proprietor by the act applicable to the particular manufacture; and any officer may, either at the time of discovery or afterwards, bring a person discovered in the act before a justice of peace, by whom he may be summarily amerced in the penalty, or, on failure, be imprisoned, with hard labour, for three months. On a second offence, the

17 & 8 Geo. IV. c. 53, § 23.-24 & 5 Wm. IV. c. 51, § 11.—37 & 8 Geo. IV. c. 53, § 27.— Ibid. § 22.-5 4 & 5 Vict. c. 20, § 24.

penalty and imprisonment are doubled. The commissioners alone have the power of modifying the punishment.1 All exciseable commodities and implements concealed with intent to defraud the revenue are forfeited, along with the vessels for containing them, and vehicles and cattle for removing them; and persons concerned forfeit treble the value, or £100, as the commissioners or the informer may decide.2

Searching Premises.-A justice of peace, on an excise officer making oath before him of suspicion of exciseable articles concealed, may grant warrant to search the premises, break down obstructions, and remove exciseable commodities, by day or night, but if between eleven at night and five in the morning, only in presence of a constable.3

Assistance." All justices of the peace, mayors, bailiffs, constables, and all his majesty's officers, ministers, and subjects, serving under his majesty by commission, warrant, or otherwise," are required to assist revenue officers. Any constable, or other ministerial officer of the peace, refusing to assist an excise officer, forfeits £20;5 the assistance may be continued by such ministerial officer beyond his jurisdic-. tion.6 Similar powers to the above are conferred on officers of the customs.7 (See Chap. V. Sect. 6.)

Obstructions, &c.-Persons who obstruct officers or their assistants making seizures, or who attempt a rescue, or injure the commodities seized, forfeit £200.8 Officers and their assistants assaulted or resisted with offensive weapons, in attempting to make seizures, may oppose force to force; and if in doing so they occasion wounds or death, they may be admitted to bail. (See Index, Murder, Homicide.)

Officers of customs seizing exciseable commodities, must give notice at the next excise office, or to the supervisor, or other officer of the district, who must take an account of the goods, after which they cannot be removed without a permit.10 Police officers seizing such commodities, must deposit them in the next excise office, unless when it is necessary to detain them for a time as productions in any criminal trial; a penalty of £20 is incurred by neglect.11

Goods produced for the purpose of fraudulently obtaining a drawback, are forfeited, along with treble the value, or £100, as the commissioners or the informer may choose.12 Disposal of Forfeited Goods. Forfeited goods are publicly

17 & 8 Geo. IV. c. 53, § 33.—2 Ibid. § 32.- Ibid. § 34.-4 Ibid. § 35. 4 & 5 Wm. IV. c. 51, § 16.—6 7 & 8 Geo. IV. c. 53, § 37.-7 Ibid. § 38. 8 Ibid. § 39.9 Ibid. § 40.-10 Ibid. § 107.- Ibid. § 108-111.-24 & 5 Wm. IV. c. 51, § 12.

« EelmineJätka »