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YEAR.

DUTIES REPEALED, IMPOSED, TRANSFERRED, ETC.

1847. Stage and hackney carriage and railway passengers' duties transferred from Stamps and Taxes.

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Malt drawback granted on spirits made in England and Ireland expressly for exportation.

Licences to dealers in spirits for retailing foreign liqueurs, new duty of £2 2s.

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1851. Duty imposed on sugar used in the brewing of beer.

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Sugar, home-made, reduced.

Additional duties imposed on Scotch and Irish spirits, viz., Scotch, 1s., and
Irish, 8d. per gallon.

Hackney carriages (London), weekly duty reduced and licences altered.
Licences for the sale of beer and spirits by retail in Scotland, altered, and
wine licences extended to grocers.

Soap duty repealed.

Post horse repealed; new licence duty imposed (Great Britain).

Scotch spirits raised 1s., and Irish spirits 8d. per gallon.

Further duty of 4d. per gallon on Scotch spirits.

Malt duties increased; Barley malt to 4s., and Bigg malt to 3s. 1d. per bushel.

Additional duty on home-made sugar; on licences to brewers using sugar, and on the sugar used in brewing.

Spirit duties increased: Scotch spirits, 1s. 10d., and Irish spirits, 28. per gallon.

Sugar duty increased, and sugar used by brewers reduced.

Stage carriage duty reduced to 1d. per mile; charge for supplementary licences reduced to 18.

Methylated Spirit Act: a mixture of spirits of wine and wood naphtha, allowed to be used duty free in the Arts.

Licences to makers of methylated spirit (£10 10s.) imposed.

Spirit duties raised: English and Scotch to 8s., and Irish to 6s. 2d. per
gallon.

Malt and sugar drawbacks on spirits abolished. Malt, sugar, and molasses
allowed to be used duty free in the distilling of spirits.
War duty on malt taken off.

per cent. revived.

Former rate of 2s. 7d. per bushel, and five

Alteration of duty on sugar used by brewers.

Duty on racehorses, constituted a duty of excise.

Equalization of the duties on home-made spirits in England, Scotland, and

Ireland.

1859. Spirit duty increased 1d. per gallon (United Kingdom).

1860.

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Licences to refreshment-house keepers and wine retailers (England and
Ireland) first imposed.

Game licences (Great Britain) transferred from Assessed Taxes to excise,
and rates of duty altered.

Licences (United Kingdom) to dealers in sweets or made wines, imposed.

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Chicory (United Kingdom) duty on home grown, imposed.

YEAR.

DUTIES REPEALED, IMPOSED, TRANSFERRED, ETC.

1860. Spirit duty (United Kingdom) increased 1s. 11d. per gallon.

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Hops (Great Britain) duty reduced.

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1862. Hop duty repealed, and licence duty on brewers, increased.

The Excise revenue is now confined to the few following heads of duty :—

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From these, including the now repealed duties on paper and hops, the net revenue of the year en led 31st March, 1862, amounted to £18,275,300.

PRESENT ORGANISATION

OF THE EXCISE BRANCH OF THE INLAND REVENUE SERVICE.

14. BOARD OF INLAND REVENUE.*-The Inland Revenue of this country, as distinguished from the Revenue of Customs, and other branches of the public income, is placed under the immediate management of a Board of six Royal Commissioners, styled Commissioners of Inland Revenue, who hold office both by patent and by Act of Parliament. The duties subject to their management consists of the Excise, Stamps, and Taxes. Until a recent period,† the Boards of Excise, of Stamps, and of Taxes, with their various clerks and officers, existed as distinct establishments. Formerly also, there were separate Boards of Excise, with independent powers, in England, Scotland, and Ireland respectively; but under the consolidations effected by the 4 Geo. IV. c. 23, and subsequent acts, the one Board of Inland Revenue, sitting at the chief office in Somerset House, London, administers the whole of the duties which accrue throughout the United Kingdom. Although however the various Boards, have been thus amalgamated, the officers and clerks of each branch of revenue remain almost as distinct as before. Of late years the Excise has been entrusted with certain duties relating to the collection of the Stamps and Taxes, but no considerable advance has yet been made towards a fusion of the general business of the three departments.

The Commissioners sit daily for the transaction of business. Three of the number, are by law, sufficient to give decisions and make minutes on all matters of discipline, disbursement, and general direction. They are amenable, however, in everything relating to the execution of their duty, to the authority and control of the Lords of the Treasury. The Commissioners are also required and empowered to appoint from time to time such collectors, subordinate officers, accountants,

* The remainder of this chapter is chiefly a compilation from the instructions issued to officers, and the reports of Commissioners of Inquiry.

The Stamps and Taxes Departments were consolidated in 1833; the Excise, Stamps and Taxes, in 1849, under the general name of Inland Revenue.

clerks, and assistants, as shall seem necessary to them, and to allow and pay to the persons so appointed, and to any other persons for charges necessarily arising in the collection or management of the excise, such money and allowances as shall be conformable to any rules or directions received from the Treasury for their guidance in that behalf: but it is provided that the number of each description of officers and persons to be so appointed, shall not in any case exceed the number fixed by general warrant or order from the Treasury.*

15. FUNCTIONS OF THE COMMISSIONERS.-It devolves also on the Commissioners to collect every part of the revenue under their care, and to keep separate and distinct accounts of it at the chief office in London. They are to set forth the amounts collected and remaining in arrear, as well as the amounts of the several payments made or allowed, and of all the expenses incurred in the management of the duties. And they are to render and furnish to the Treasury such accounts, when and so often as the same shall be directed or required. For the last twenty years, the Commissioners have ceased to act as public accountants, and very lately the office of comptroller and auditor of excise was abolished, the accounts of this revenue, in common with those of every other public department, being now audited and passed before the Commissioners for auditing the Public Accounts.

* The following description of the routine of the Board-room was given by the late Chairman in his evidence before the select Committee on the Inland Revenue and Customs establishments (1862.) The Board is divided into committees; there are three committees daily to dispose of the minor papers; an Excise Committee, to dispose of the papers brought up by two committeo clerks; a Stamp Committee, and a Tax Committee; a Committee for papers brought up by the Chief Examiner of Taxes twice a week, and a Committee for Land Tax papers once a week; a Committee also once a week upon solicitors' prosecutions, to decide on the amount of penalties that it is fit parties should pay; there is a committee also for the allowance of spoiled stamps, on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays; the junior members of the Board are likewise engaged on the assessment of penalties upon deeds that are brought daily to be stamped; but it will be perhaps better to state the business of the Board as it occurs; these committees sit in separate rooms before the Board meet as a Board; they attend at ten o'clock and the committee clerks bring in their papers and lay them before the Commissioner in attendance, and so they are disposed of by such Commissioner; having disposed of those papers, they theu attend the Board at eleven o'clock. I need not say that the chairman and deputy chairman have a great deal to do before the Board meets, particularly with reference to communications from the Chancellor of the Exchequer. At eleven o'clock the Board business begins, and the chairman and the deputy chairman, and such of the junior members as have finished their committee business attend in the Board-room, and the first Secretary of Excise brings up all the Excise papers to be disposed of by the Board, and those papers are read by the Secretary, and a minute is made upon them by the chairman, or, if he is absent, by the deputy chairman in communication with the other members of the Board present, f their judgment is required; very frequently this occupies about an hour; the Secretary of Taxes attends then with all the income tax and assessed tax papers, that is, the principal papers, and that takes about another hour; the Assistant Secretary of Excise then attends with all his papers (papers of less importance than those of the Chief Secretary), and the Chairman goes through those papers, and disposes of them in the same way. The Assistant Secretary then of the Stamps and Taxes brings his papers, and they are disposed of by the Chairman making minutes upon them. This generally occupies until about two o'clock; about that time, as a general rule, the papers that are brought before the Board by the four secretaries, are disposed of.

The committee clerks above spoken of are not the advisers of the Board, but their work is very heavy; the Secretary of the Excise does nothing at all in connexion with the Stamps and Taxes, nor can he. Consolidation has had no effect with reference to the duties of the Chief Secretary of our Department, and it is impossible that any man who is not thoroughly acquainted with the whole business of Excise could ever fill the office of Secretary in the Excise branch The Income Tax papers are exceedingly numerous, and require a great knowledge of tax law. The Secretary of Income Tax has most important papers to bring before the Board every day, and he must also have a thorough knowledge of the taxes; but he does not ever bring up an excise paper; it would be useless for him to do so,"

The promotion, removal, and punishment of officers, the ordering of prosecutions against traders, and the general conduct of the service, rest with the Commissioners, the Treasury interfering only in cases of peculiar importance. To assist them in the discharge of their various duties,—the keeping of accounts, the carrying on of correspondence, the decision of difficult points of law or practice, &c., the Commissioners are allowed the services of two principal Secretaries, one for the Excise, and one for the Stamps and Taxes; two Assistant Secretaries with a similar division of duties; four committee clerks, two for each branch of revenue; 8 Receiver-General, a Solicitor and Assistant Solicitor, a Comptroller of Legacy and Succession duties, three Chief Accountants, &c., &c., together with a number of Clerks attached to the various departments.

The salaries of the members of the Board, and of the principal officers abovenamed are as follows:-Chairman, £2,000; Deputy Chairman, £1,600; Four other Commissioners, £1,200 each; Secretaries, each £1,200; Assistant Secretaries, each £800; Committee Clerks, each £550, rising by £20 per annum to £650; ReceiverGeneral, £1,000; Solicitor, £2,000; Assistant Solicitor, £1,200; Comptroller of Legacy and Succession Duties, £1,600; Chief Accountants, £800 each. There is also in Scotland a Solicitor and Comptroller-General, and in Ireland, a Solicitor with a salary of £1,600 a year each.*

16. GENERAL VIEW OF THE EXCISE SURVEYING DEPARTMENT.-The Excise duties of Inland Revenue are charged and collected by a number cf commissioned officers, who form what is called the Excise Surveying Establishment. For the convenience of business, each part of the United Kingdom is divided into several large sections, technically named Collections. A Collection is not limited by boundaries of town or county, but is proportioned to the number of traders in different localities, and the magnitude of their operations. Usually, a Collection takes its title from the name of some large city or town prescribed as the residence of the principal officer, or at which there is the largest receipt of duties. In other cases, a collection is named after the county which comprises the greater portion of its extent.

Each Collection is presided over by a Collector, an officer who holds the highest local rank in the surveying department.

Collections are subdivided into Districts, and these again into Divisions (or Footwalks) and Rides.

The officer in charge of a district is called a Supervisor, and is next in rank below a Collector. The fixed surveying officers are of two classes.-1. Division officers; 2. Ride officers. In Scotland, the remote and thinly peopled parts of the country where but few duties accrue, are laid out in Preventive Districts, instead of collections. A supervisor has charge of each of these Preventive Districts, and acts in the capacity both of a check officer and a receiver of duties. He has under him, in addition to the ordinary surveying officers, a number of Preventive officers and Preventive men, whose special business it is to aid in suppressing the illicit manufacture of malt and spirits. In Ireland, since the abolition of the Revenue Police Force, the same object is effected by the co-operation of the Constabulary with the officers of Excise.

* For the names of the Commissioners, and a list of the Excise Establishment in general, see Loftus's "Inland Revenue Almanack," revised and published annually.

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A little further on, a short account will be given of the peculiar duties of each class of officers filling these various stations, and of the duties of other auxiliary officers of distinct grades, employed in the surveying department.

17.

NOMINATION OF CANDIDATES FOR ADMISSION INTO THE EXCISE.-Any person desirous of entering the Excise surveying department of Inland Revenue. must first obtain a nomination through one of the usual channels of government patronage. The power of nomination rests exclusively with the Treasury, but it is understood that ten nominations out of every hundred are placed at the disposal of the Board, for the sons of deserving officers with large families. In this case, no influence is needed beyond that of the claim of the applicant properly addressed to the Commissioners; but, of late years, a considerable delay attends the granting of such petitions, unless otherwise supported.

The first appointment is invariably to the lowest station in the service, that of second-class assistant. No departure from this rule is ever permitted, as the interests of the Revenue would be likely to suffer by the immediate placing of an inexperienced person in a higher position; nor could the thorough, practical training of each officer be otherwise ensured.

18.

QUALIFICATIONS OF CANDIDATES.-The indispensable qualifications of a candidate for admission into the Surveying Branch of Inland Revenue, are as follows:

He must not be less than 19, nor more than 25 years of age, at the time of his nomination: any candidate who shall not present himself for exami nation within one month after he has attained the age of twenty-five, shall be ineligible. A baptismal certificate, or other satisfactory evidence of age, will be required:

He must be healthy and active, and without any bodily infirmity; of this, a medical certificate will be required:

He must not be encumbered with debts, and must be unmarried, without family, and of respectable character:

He must understand arithmetic, so as to work out sums in the rules of addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division, both in common arithmetic and in vulgar and decimal fractions, reduction, proportion, practice, and interest; he must be able to write a good hand, and correctly and fluently from dictation:

He will undergo an examination in the above-named subjects, and, if approved, will be placed under the instruction of an Excise officer for at least six weeks; at the expiration of which period, if he be found qualified to perform the duties of an officer, he will be certified for accordingly, and his salary will commence.

On the nomination of a candidate, the supervisor of the district in which he

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