Why track the Act?

Before 1992 the courts could not look at parliamentary materials to discern the intention of Parliament in using the words in a statute, because this would amount to 'questioning' the proceedings of Parliament in breach of article 9 of the 1688 Bill of Rights.

However, the unsatisfactory result of this judge-made 'exclusionary rule' was highlighted in November 1989 during the case of Pepper v Hart [1990] STC 6 before Vinelott J in the Chancery Division.

The bursar and nine assistant masters at Malvern College had their sons educated at one-fifth of the normal fees, and the Crown sought to tax the benefit under FA 1976, s 63.

Stephen Oliver QC as he then was (later His Honour Sir Stephen Oliver, Presiding Special Commissioner) acted for the taxpayers. He noticed that in Rowland's Tax Guide 1978-79 it said that benefits available to employees were not taxable so long as the employee paid at least the marginal cost to the employer.

The author, Nigel Eastaway of Rowland Nevill & Co (Moores & Rowland from 1985) derived this from a statement by the Financial Secretary on 22 June 1976 in Standing Committee on clause 54 (later s 63).

The minister had said, replying to a question about teachers who paid lower fees for a child, that 'the benefit will be assessed on the cost to the employer, which would be very small indeed in this case'.

When the case came to the House of Lords on 4 November 1991 they decided to convene a special sitting of seven Law Lords. They met on six days in June, and in November 1992 they ruled that where legislation was obscure, and there was a clear statement by a minister, the exclusionary rule should be relaxed ([1992] STC 923).

But linking legislation with ministers' statements is difficult when clause numbers change, sometimes twice, during the passage of a Bill. This is where a tracking table is invaluable, enabling final provisions to be linked with their debates.

Taxation has provided such a table for the Finance Bill for many years.

Notable features

A novel feature of this year's Act is the absence of a repeals Schedule. Since the 1870s Acts have included such a Schedule, which both made repeals and recited any made elsewhere in the Act.

Increasingly, over the years, all repeals have appeared elsewhere so the repeals Schedule has been repetitive, albeit providing a useful checklist. This year the policy has been carried to its logical conclusion and reduces the length of the Act.

This year's Bill was longer than last year's (421 pages against 305) with 160 clauses and 46 Schedules against 113 clauses and 27 Schedules. To match, there were 24 instead of 14 Public Bill Committee sittings.

The table available below to download as a PDF shows the number of every clause and Schedule in the Bill. It shows the numbers of all amendments made, where they are printed in Simon's Weekly Tax Intelligence (SWTI), and the date and location of all debates.

W indicates debates in the Whole House and numbers indicate sittings of the Public Bill Committee; x indicates no debate took place. Where possible, unamended clauses and Schedules are grouped together to reduce the length of the table.

At the Committee stage no less than 220 amendments were made, of which no less than 135 related to Schedule 7, Remittance basis. This complex legislation was not published in draft until 18 January, and even when the Bill was published the explanatory notes admitted that some clauses were incomplete.

Much of the other legislation could be passed with only political debate and few technical amendments, because the Chartered Institute of Taxation, the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales' Tax Faculty and other bodies had helped HMRC to get the drafting right.

Because of the many amendments to Schedule 7, the table shows separately the amendments to the various ITA 2007, new ss 809A to 809Z7 introduced by para 1, and to the other paras.

At the Report stage, on 1 July (columns 736 to 834) and 2 July (columns 866 to 992), 61 more amendments were made, of which 48 relate to Schedule 7. All are printed in SWTI at pages 1649-1658; government amendment 69 was withdrawn and replaced by non-government amendment 18.

As an example of use, Sch 7 paras 122, 123 in the Act (see right-hand column) were in the original Bill as para 109 (see first column). At Committee, amendments 433-435 altered it and added paras 109A and 109B; the three paras became paras 122-124.

At Report, amendment 79 deleted para 124. The Committee amendments are printed at SWTI p 1593 (with explanatory notes 62 to 66 on p 1605), and were debated on 19 June, Sitting 24, cols 869-882; the Report amendment (printed at SWTI p 1657) was 'debated' at cols 966-982 (see col 978).

Altogether six new clauses were added to the Bill:

• Section 3 — Personal allowances for those aged under 65
• Section 4 — Basic rate limit
• Section 27 — Qualifying expenditure: R & D relief and vaccine research relief
• Section 100 — Stamp duty: gifts inter vivos
• Section 104 — PRT: abandonment expenditure: deduction from ring fence income
• Section 133 — Set-off, etc. where right to be paid a sum has been transferred.

The Bill lengthened from 421 pages to 451 pages, Sch 7 accounting for half the increase. The Commons passed the Bill on 2 July. The Bill passed through all stages in the House of Lords on 18 July and received Royal Assent on 21 July.

A table for the FA 2007 appeared in the article Tracking the Act.

John Jeffrey-Cook is a consulting editor to LexisNexis Butterworths' Encyclopaedia of Forms and Precedents

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