Finance Act 1937

JurisdictionUK Non-devolved


Finance Act, 1937

(1 Edw. 8 & 1 Geo. 6.) CHAPTER 54.

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.

[30th July 1937]

Most Gracious Sovereign,

W E, Your Majesty's most dutiful and loyal subjects the Commons of the United Kingdom 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:—

I Customs and Excise.

PART I.

Customs and Excise.

S-1 Continuation of duty on hops, &c., andof additional duty and draw back on beer.

1 Continuation of duty on hops, &c., andof additional duty and draw back on beer.

(1) The duties of customs chargeable by virtue of subsection (1) of section two of the Finance Act, 1933 ,on hops, hop oil and extracts, essences or other similar preparations made from hops, and the additional duty of customs chargeable under subsection (2) of that section in respect of beer, shall continue to be charged until the end of the fifteenth day of August, nineteen hundred and duty and forty-one.

(2) The additional excise drawback allowed in respect of beer under subsection (4) of the said section two shall continue to be allowed until the end of the fifteenth day of November, nineteen hundred and forty-one.

S-2 Extension of period of stabilisation of rates ofImperial preference.

2 Extension of period of stabilisation of rates ofImperial preference.

2. Subsection (1) of section seven of the Finance Act, 1926, (which, as extended by section four of the Finance Act, 1936, provides for the stabilisation of rates of Imperial preference during a period ending on the nineteenth day of August, nineteen hundred and thirty-seven) shall have effect as if the said period were extended by one year; and accordingly subsection (1) of the said section four shall be amended by substituting the words ‘nineteen hundred and thirty-eight’ for the words ‘nineteen hundred and thirty-seven’.

S-3 Provisions for fulfilling agreement with Canada.

3 Provisions for fulfilling agreement with Canada.

(1) The following provisions of this section shall have effect with a view to the fulfilment of the agreement made on the twenty-third day of February, nineteen hundred and thirty-seven, between His Majesty's Government in the United Kingdom and His Majesty's Government in the Dominion of Canada, being the agreement set out in the First Schedule to this Act.

(2) As from such date as the Treasury may by order declare to be the date on which it has been mutually agreed under article seventeen of the said agreement that that agreement shall come into force, the Ottawa Agreements Act, 1932 , and any other enactment relating to customs which amends or relates to that Act, shall have effect as if the said agreement were substituted for the agreement set out in Part I of the First Schedule to that Act.

(3) The following provisions shall have effect as respects the preferential rate of any new duties of customs for the time being chargeable under section nine of the Finance Act, 1933, on articles being stockings or socks made wholly of silk or containing silk components the value whereof exceeds twenty per cent. of the aggregate of the values of all the components thereof, and being Empire products:—

(a ) for the purposes of this subsection—

(i) the expression ‘the existing preferential rate’ means the preferential rate provided in subsection (5) of the said section nine; and

(ii) the expression ‘the agreed preferential rate’ means whichever is the higher of the following rates, namely, twenty-eight and eight-ninths per cent. of the value of the article or eight shillings per pound weight;

(b ) if only one duty is for the time being chargeable as aforesaid on any such article, the duty shall be chargeable on the article either at the agreed preferential rate or at the existing preferential rate, whichever is the lower;

(c ) if two or more duties are for the time being so chargeable on any such article, the aggregate amount thereof payable in respect of the article shall not exceed whichever of the two following amounts is the less, namely, the aggregate amount of those duties which would be so payable if they were charged at the existing preferential rate or the amount of duty which would be so payable if a single duty were charged at the agreed preferential rate;

(d ) if at any time the Treasury are satisfied that none of the scheduled agreements for the time being in force would be contravened if the operation of paragraphs (b ) and (c ) of this subsection were suspended, the Treasury shall by order direct that the operation thereof shall be suspended so long as the order remains in force, but any such order shall be revoked if and when the Treasury are satisfied that any such agreement is being contravened by reason of the order;

(e ) in relation to any such articles manufactured in a country the Government of which is a party to one of the scheduled agreements, the provisions of paragraphs (b ) and (c ) of this subsection shall not in any case have effect at any time when that agreement is not in force.

(4) The duty of customs chargeable under section three of the Finance Act, 1925 , shall not be charged on reed organs (including harmoniums) imported complete, being Empire products:

Provided that—

(a ) if at any time the Treasury are satisfied that none of the scheduled agreements for the time being in force would be contravened if the foregoing provisions of this subsection were suspended, the Treasury shall by order direct that those provisions shall be suspended so long as the order remains in force, but any such order shall be revoked if and when the Treasury are satisfied that any such agreement is being contravened by reason of the order; and

(b ) in relation to any such organ manufactured in a country the Government of which is a party to one of the scheduled agreements, the said provisions of this subsection shall not in any case have effect at any time when that agreement is not in force.

(5) The last two foregoing subsections shall be deemed to have had effect as from the twenty-first day of April, nineteen hundred and thirty-seven.

(6) Section five of the Ottawa Agreements Act, 1932, shall cease to have effect.

(7) This section shall be construed as one with the Ottawa Agreements Act, 1932, and the enactments amending that Act.

S-4 Provision as to exemption of sculptures, &c.from import duties.

4 Provision as to exemption of sculptures, &c.from import duties.

(1) Any order made by the Treasury under subsection (3) of section one of the Import Duties Act, 1932 , directing that works of art to which this section applies, or any class or description thereof, shall be added to the First Schedule to that Act, may provide that no article shall be exempt from duty as being a work of art of a class or description to which the order relates unless it is certified by or on behalf of the director of a museum or gallery specified in the order, being a museum or gallery the expenses of which are defrayed out of moneys provided by Parliament, to be a work of art of that class or description.

(2) Any such order may further contain provisions—

(a ) as to the form of the certificates to be issued thereunder, as to the form and manner in which applications therefor are to be made, and as to the particulars and documents to be furnished with any such application;

(b ) as to the number of replicas or impressions of the same article in respect of which such certificates may be issued;

(c ) as to the place in which any article, in respect of which exemption is claimed under the order, is to be deposited and kept pending the production of such a certificate or payment of duty, as to the conditions on which an article is to be so deposited, and as to the sale or disposal of an article so deposited in the event of failure to produce the certificate or pay the duty.

(3) The expenses of the director of any museum or gallery under any such order shall be defrayed out of moneys provided by Parliament.

(4) The works of art to which this section applies are sculptures, whether in the round, in relief or in intaglio, and engraved or etched blocks, plates or other material and impressions thereof.

S-5 Repeal of male servant duty, and effect thereof ongame licence duty.

5 Repeal of male servant duty, and effect thereof ongame licence duty.

(1) The duty of excise chargeable under the Revenue Act, 1869 , in respect of male servants shall cease to be chargeable, and no licence shall be required to be taken out under that Act in respect of the employment of a male servant:

Provided that nothing in the foregoing provisions of this subsection shall affect the rate of the duty chargeable under the Game Licences Act, 1860 , in respect of licences to kill game taken out or renewed on behalf of servants employed as gamekeepers, and accordingly the provisions of that Act set out in the first column of the Second Schedule to this Act shall be amended in the manner shown in the second column of that Schedule.

(2) No licence to kill game shall be taken out or renewed by any person under the Game Licences Act, 1860, on behalf of a servant employed as a gamekeeper unless...

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