Property Tax in UK Law

Now, the cardinal consideration in my judgment is that the income tax is only one tax, a tax on the income of the person whom it is sought to assess, and that the different Schedules are the modes in which the Statute directs this to be levied. In other words, there are not five taxes which you might call income tax A, B, C, D, and E, but only one tax.

Now, there are three stages in the imposition of a tax: there is the declaration of liability, that is the part of the statute which determines what persons in respect of what property are liable. But assessment particularises the exact sum which a person liable has to pay. Lastly, come the methods of recovery, if the person taxed does not voluntarily pay.

The modern rule of construction of statutes is that the Crown, which to-day personifies the executive government of the country and is also a party to all the legislation, is not bound by a statute which imposes obligations or restraints on persons or in respeot of property, unlessths statute says so expressly or by necessary implication.

The question which arises in a case like this is a very simple one. Given that non-domestic rates are a tax on individual properties, what is the property in question? In principle, the fact that the same occupier holds two or more properties is irrelevant to the rateable status of any of them.

If adjoining houses in a terrace or vertically contiguous units in an office block do not intercommunicate and can be accessed only via other property (such as a public street or the common parts of the building) of which the common occupier is not in exclusive possession, this will be a strong indication that they are separate hereditaments.

The law has indeed moved on in response to changing social and economic conditions. The search is to ascertain the parties' shared intentions, actual, inferred or imputed, with respect to the property in the light of their whole course of conduct in relation to it.

This conclusion renders it unnecessary to give separate consideration to the question of the actual authority of the individual officers of the municipalities to enter into the loan agreements. The officers obviously lacked such authority. However in case it is relevant I should state that I can in any event see no basis upon which the officers concerned had authority to enter into the amendments to the loan agreements.