Finance Act 1917
| Jurisdiction | UK Non-devolved |
| Citation | 1917 c. 31 |
Finance Act, 1917
(7 & 8 Geo. 5.) CHAPTER 31.
An Act to grant certain duties of Customs and Inland Revenue (including Excise), to alter other duties, and to amend the Law relating to Customs and Inland Revenue (including Excise) and the National Debt, and to make further provision in connection with Finance.
[2nd August 1917]
Most Gracious Sovereign,
We , Your Majesty's most dutiful and loyal subjects the Commons of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland in Parliament assembled, towards raising the necessary supplies to defray Your Majesty's public expenses, and making an addition to the public revenue, have freely and voluntarily resolved to give and grant unto Your Majesty the several duties hereinafter mentioned; and do therefore most humbly beseech Your Majesty that it may be enacted, and be it enacted by the King's most Excellent Majesty, by and with the advice and consent of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal, and Commons, in this present Parliament assembled, and by the authority of the same, as follows:
Part I.
Customs and Excise .
1 Continuance of Customs duties imposed under 5 & 6 Geo. 5. c. 89.
1. The following duties of Customs, imposed by Part I. of the Finance (No. 2) Act, 1915, shall continue to be charged, levied, and paid until the first day of August nineteen hundred and eighteen, that is to say:—
| Duty. | Section of Act. |
| Increased duty on tea | 1 |
| Additional duties on dried fruit | 8 |
| Additional duty on motor spirit | 10(1) |
| New import duties | 12 |
2 Continuance of Excise duties imposed under 5 & 6 Geo. 5. c. 89.
2. The following duties of Excise, imposed by Part I. of the Finance (No. 2) Act, 1915, shall continue to be charged, levied, and paid until the first day of August nineteen hundred and eighteen, that is to say:—
| Duty. | Section of Act. |
| Additional duty on motor spirit | 10 (2) |
| Additional medicine duties | 11 |
3 Increase of entertainments duty.
3. On and after the first day of October nineteen hundred and seventeen section one of the Finance (New Duties) Act, 1916, shall have effect as if the following scale of rates of entertainments duty were substituted for the scale set forth in that section—
Where the payment, excluding the amount of the duty—
| does not exceed 2 d. — | a halfpenny. |
| exceeds 2 d. and does not exceed 4 d. — | one penny. |
| ,, 4 d. ,, ,, 6 d. — | twopence. |
| ,, 6 d. ,, ,, 1 s. — | threepence. |
| ,, 1 s. ,, ,, 2 s. — | fourpence. |
| ,, 2 s. ,, ,, 3 s. — | sixpence. |
| ,, 3 s. ,, ,, 5 s. — | ninepence. |
| ,, 5 s. ,, ,, 7 s. 6 d. — | one shilling. |
| ,, 7 s. 6 d. ,, ,, 10 s. 6 d. — | one shilling and sixpence. |
| ,, 10 s. 6 d. ,, ,, 15 s. — | two shillings. |
,, 15 s. —two shillings for the first 15 s. and sixpence for every 5 s. or part of 5 s. over fifteen shillings. | |
4 Continuance of additional duties on tobacco at double rate.
(1) The additional duties of Customs payable under Part I. of the Finance (No. 2) Act, 1915, on tobacco imported into Great Britain or Ireland, shall, as from the third day of May nineteen hundred and seventeen, be doubled, and shall continue to be charged levied and paid at the double rate until the sixteenth day of July nineteen hundred and seventeen, and as from the last-mentioned date the said additional duties instead of being charged at the double rate shall be increased by fifty per cent. and shall continue to be charged levied and paid at that increased rate until the first day of August nineteen hundred and eighteen.
(2) The additional duties of Excise payable under Part I. of the Finance (No. 2) Act, 1915, on tobacco grown in Great Britain or Ireland, shall, as from the third day of May nineteen hundred and seventeen, be doubled, and shall continue to be charged levied and paid at the double rate until the sixteenth day of July nineteen hundred and seventeen, and as from the last-mentioned date the said additional duties instead of being charged at the double rate shall be increased by fifty per cent. and shall continue to be charged levied and paid at that increased rate until the first day of August nineteen hundred and eighteen.
(3) Subsection (3) of section eighty-three of the Finance (1909-10) Act, 1910 , and any other enactment relating to drawback on tobacco, shall have effect as if the rates set out in Part I. and Part II. of the First Schedule to this Act were respectively substituted for the rates set out in Part III. of the Second Schedule to the Finance (No. 2) Act, 1915, in cases where it is shown that additional duty has been paid at the double rate imposed by this section or the increased rate imposed by this section, as the case may be.
5 Effect of repeal of s. 2 of 2 & 3 Geo. 5. c. 8. by 5 & 6 Geo. 5. c. 89.
5. It is hereby declared that the repeal by section eighteen of the Finance (No. 2) Act, 1915, of section two of the Finance Act, 1912 (which related to the distribution of payments on account of liquor licence duties in certain cases), operates and has always operated so as to extinguish any liability to make payments in pursuance of the said section two after the date of the repeal, whether or not the liability existed before the date of the repeal:
Provided that nothing in this section shall affect the validity of any payments actually made between the date of the repeal and the date of the passing of this Act.
6 Power to reduce minimum weight of packages of imported tobacco.
6. The provisions of section forty-two of the Customs Consolidation Act, 1876, relating to tobacco, and section one hundred and sixty-three of that Act, as respectively amended by section five of the Finance Act, 1896, shall have effect as if the words ‘weighing not less than eighty pounds gross weight or such less weight as the Commissioners of Customs and Excise (subject to such conditions, if any, as they think fit to impose) may permit’ were therein inserted in substitution for the words ‘of the gross weight of not less than eighty pounds.’
7 Reduction of licence duty in respect of the restriction on the output and delivery of intoxicating liquor.
(1) In order to give relief in respect of the restriction of business caused by the Intoxicating Liquor (Output and Delivery) Order, 1917, the holder of an excise liquor licence, being one of the licences specified in the Second Schedule to this Act, shall be entitled to obtain, on the expiration of the licence, repayment in respect of the duty paid by him for the licence at the rate of one-sixteenth part of the duty for a full year for every month or part of a month during which the said order has been in force and the licence has been current, but repayment shall not in any case exceed three-fourths of the duty paid for the licence.
(2) The provisions of this section shall have effect as from and after the thirty-first day of March nineteen hundred and seventeen, and as regards any excise liquor licence to which this section applies, but, subject always to the right of the holder of any such licence to a proportionate repayment or rebate in respect of the period ending on the said thirty-first day of March, the provisions of section nine of the Finance Act, 1914 (Session 2), section six of the Finance Act, 1915 , and section seventeen of the Finance (No. 2) Act, 1915, shall cease to have effect.
8 Relief from duty on liquor licences where business cannot be carried on.
(1) Where the holder of any wholesale dealer's or retailer's licence taken out under Part II. of the Finance (1909-10) Act, 1910, satisfies the Commissioners of Customs and Excise that by reason of the licensed premises having been destroyed or seriously damaged, or by reason of any prohibition or restriction imposed by or under the authority of any enactment or regulation in connection with the present war, the business for the purpose of which or in connection with which the licence was granted has been discontinued, he shall, on making application to the Commissioners within one month after the discontinuance or within such longer period as the Commissioners may in any special case allow, be entitled to obtain repayment, or, so far as the duty has not been paid, remission, of such part of the duty for the year as bears to the full amount of that duty the same proportion as the period during which the business is not carried on, or the part thereof falling within the year, bears to a whole year.
(2) In any such case as aforesaid (but as respects any case to which section eight of the Dublin Reconstruction (Emergency Provisions) Act, 1916 , applies without prejudice to the rights under that section), the excise licence, and any justices' licence on the authority of which the excise licence was granted, shall be deemed to be suspended as from the commencement of the period aforesaid; but at the expiration of that period any such justices' licence shall revive, and have effect as if it had been granted for the then current licensing year, and, if the revival takes place between the date of the general annual licensing meeting in any licensing year and the end of the year, as if it had been granted for that year and the next licensing year, or, in the case of a licence granted for a term, as if the term were extended by a period equal to the period of suspension, and the holder of an excise...
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