200 not out

STEPHEN OLIVER QC reviews the two hundred year history of the Special Commissioners.

WHY 'SPECIAL' COMMISSIONERS? Their proper title is the 'Commissioners for the Special Purposes of the Income Tax Acts'. Their illustrious and older colleagues the General Commissioners are simply the 'General Commissioners of Income Tax'.

The Special Commissioners have always been a tribunal with a special responsibility for the long the difficult and the sensitive appeals. And they have always been a tribunal of specialist judiciary. For 150 years they operated as a special branch of the Revenue department. They started off in 1805 as in effect the 'claims branch' of the tax system dealing with claims for exemption and relief for incomes chargeable under Schedule A (land) and Schedule C (government securities) by non-residents and other tax exempt bodies. Income tax was abolished in 1816 when the Napoleonic War ceased but...