TAX REVIEW AUTHORITY

Press, Volume XCIX, Issue 29269, 29 July 1960, Page 14

TAX REVIEW AUTHORITY

Faults Seen In Proposal

The proposal announced in the Budget last week to establish a board to review decisions of the Commissioner of Inland Revenue is criticised by the Constitutional Society in a statement issued yesterday. The society says that while it welcomes any safeguard for taxpayers, the procedure apparently visualised by the Government would have the disadvantage of depriving taxpayers of even the present limited access to the Courts for appeals against tax assessments.

“The society considers this to be a retrograde step and it views with concern any move to deny access to the courts,” says the statements. “The courts bring to problems a wide experience of human affairs and a breadth of outlook which makes them best equipped to do justice. Ad hoc tribunals, while dear to the heart of the bureaucrats, have no appeal to the Citizen because their decisions tend to be coloured by the departmental view. “In a letter to the Minister of Finance (Mr Nordmeyqp) the society says it is confident that experienced barristers would take a similar view. It accordingly asks for this aspect to be considered when legislation is being framed. “Earlier this year the society asked the Government to establish a board to review decisions by the commissioner on all matters committed by Parliament to his special uncontrolled discretion. This, says the society, was an entirely different matter from the Question raised in the Budget. "The commissioner has been given very wide powers and there is no appeal against his decisions in many cases. The society is concerned to see that the discretion is exercised consistently and fairly, but it is not in favour of access to the courts to contest assessments being denied.”