Finance (No. 2) Act, 1915

Excess mineral rights duty.

43.(1) Where the amount payable to any person as rent in respect of the right to work minerals or of any mineral wayleaves (in cases where the right to work the minerals and the mineral wayleaves are not part of the assets of any trade or business) varies according to the price of the minerals, and the amount so payable in respect of any working year ending on any date after the commencement of the present war (in this section referred to as the accounting year) exceeds the pre-war standard of that rent, there shall be paid as an addition to any mineral rights duty payable or paid, either directly or by deduction, by reference to the amount of the rent paid in that working year, by that person (in this section referred to as the person liable) an amount equal to fifty per cent. of that excess.

(2) The pre-war standard of rent shall, for the purposes of this section, be taken to be the average of any two of the three last pre-war rent values, to be selected by the taxpayer, and in cases where the minerals have not been worked or the wayleaves have not been let throughout the three years by reference to which the three last pre-war rent values are to be calculated, or for any other reason there are no proper data for ascertaining the pre-war rent values, shall be taken to be such amount as may be fixed by the Commissioners of Inland Revenue, having regard to the data afforded by the working and price of minerals in like circumstances, subject nevertheless to the same appeal as that to which the assessment of duty by the Commissioners is subject under Part I. of the Finance (1909–10) Act, 1910.

The pre-war rent value shall, as respects each of the three years immediately preceding the first accounting year, be taken to be the sum to which the rent for the accounting year would amount if the rent, so far as variable according to price, were based on the average prices governing the payment of the rent in that year.

(3) Any amount payable in any accounting year by the lessee of minerals or wayleaves to a superior lessor as rent in respect of the minerals or wayleaves shall be treated as a deduction from the amount payable to the lessee as rent for that year, and in computing the pre-war rent values a corresponding deduction shall be made on account of any such rent.

(4) Any increment value duty payable annually under section twenty-two of the Finance (1909–10) Act, 1910, shall, when paid, be treated as a deduction from the rent payable to any person in the year in which the duty is paid, and a corresponding deduction shall be made in computing the pre-war standard with which the rent for that year is to be compared.

(5) Any duty payable under this section shall be assessed by the Commissioners of Inland Revenue on the person liable, subject to the same appeal as that to which an assessment of duty by the Commissioners under Part I. of the Finance (1909–10) Act, 1910, is subject, and shall be recoverable as a debt due to His Majesty from that person.

(6) Subsection (3) of section twenty of the Finance (1909–10) Act, 1910, shall extend so as to authorise particulars to be required of any lease of minerals or wayleaves and as to the sums paid or payable thereunder, and of such other particulars as to the minerals or wayleaves as the Commissioners may require for the purpose of this section.

(7) Expressions to which a special meaning is attached by Part I. of the Finance (1909–10) Act, 1910, shall have the same meaning in this section.