Finance (No. 2) Act, 1915

Part III.

Excess Profits Duty.

Charge of excess profits duty.

38.(1) There shall be charged, levied, and paid on the amount by which the profits arising from any trade or business to which this Part of this Act applies, in any accounting period which ended after the fourth day of August nineteen hundred and fourteen, and before the first day of July nineteen hundred and fifteen, exceeded, by more than two hundred pounds, the pre-war standard of profits as defined for the purposes of this Part of this Act, a duty (in this Act referred to as “excess profits duty”) of an amount equal to fifty per cent. of that excess.

(2) For the purposes of this Part of this Act the accounting period shall be taken to be the period for which the accounts of the trade or business have been made up, and where the accounts of any trade or business have not been made up for any definite period, or for the period for which they have been usually made up, or a year or more has elapsed without accounts being made up, shall be taken to be such period not being less than six months or more than a year ending on such a date as the Commissioners of Inland Revenue may determine.

Where any accounting period is a period of less than a year this section shall have effect as if there were substituted for two hundred pounds a proportionately reduced amount.

(3) Where a person proves that in any accounting period, which ended after the fourth day of August nineteen hundred and fourteen, his profits have not reached the point which involves liability to excess profits duty, or that he has sustained loss in his trade or business, he shall be entitled to repayment of such amount paid by him as excess profits duty in respect of any previous accounting period, or to set off against and excess profits duty payable by him in respect of any succeeding accounting period, such an amount as will make the total amount of excess profits duty paid by him during the whole period accord with his profits or losses during that period.