HAND-BOOK OF INCOME TAX LAW & PRACTICE, WITH AN INDEX TO THE ACTS OF PARLIAMENT-1842 TO THE PRESENT TIME. SIMPKIN, MARSHALL, & CO., STATIONERS' HALL COURT. ALEXANDER THOM, DUBLIN. 1863. PREFACE. TWENTY years have elapsed since the passing of the Income Tax Act, and no compendious publication has yet appeared, professing to convey that description of information which is usually embodied under the now popular form of a Hand-Book. This is the more surprising, because on account of the numerous difficulties connected with the Law and Practice on the subject, and the many important provisions in the various Acts of Parliament affecting the interests of all classes of the community,* information cannot be too widely circulated. *The following letter, from John Gellibrand Hubbard, Esq., M.P., will serve to show how important, and at the same time how little known, are some of the operations of the Income Tax Acts: THE INCOME TAX. TO THE EDITOR OF THE TIMES. SIR,-Many traders and manufacturers have, I doubt not, reason to lament the unprofitable result of their business in the year 1861; but I believe that comparatively few are aware of the provision in the Income Tax Act which enables them to recover the tax that was overpaid for the year 1861, before the results of the year were ascertained. I have recently had occasion to become familiar with the mode of recovery, and you will, I am sure, confer a benefit upon the mercantile community by allowing me, through your columns, to indicate the necessary course of proceeding. A trader may have returned, say £12,000, as the average of his profits for the years 1858, 1859, and 1860, and upon this sum he will have paid 97. in the pound, or £450, in the course of the financial year 1861-2; but, on closing his books, he finds that he has made only £4,000, or possibly he has made a loss. In either event he will address |