Finance Act, 1920

Provisions for cases where assessments, returns, &c. have been lost, destroyed, or damaged.

61.(1) Where any assessment to income tax, excess profits duty, or munitions exchequer payments for any year or period, or any duplicate of assessment to income tax for any year, or any return or other ducument relating to income tax, excess profits duty, or munitions exchequer payments, has been lost or destroyed, or has been so defaced or damaged as to be illegible or otherwise useless, the commissioners, surveyors, assessors, collectors, and other officers respectively having powers in relation to income tax, excess profits duty, or munitions exchequer payments, as the case may be, may, notwithstanding anything in any enactment to the contrary, do all such acts and things as they might have done, and all acts and things done under or in pursuance of this section shall be as valid and effectual for all purposes as they would have been if the assessment or duplicate of assessment had not been made, or the return or other document had not been made or furnished, or required to ba made or furnished;

Provided that, where any person who is charged with income tax, excess profits duty, or munitions exchequer payments in consequence or by virtue of any act or thing done under or in pursuance of this section, proves to the satisfaction of the Commissioners having jurisdiction in the case that he has already paid any income tax, excess profits duty, or munitions exchequer payments for the same year or period in respect of the subject matter and on the account in respect of and on which he is so charged, relief shall be given to the extent to which the liability of that person has been discharged by the payments so made either by abatement from the charge or by repayment, as the case may require.

(2) In this section, the expression “Commissioners” means as the case may require, either the Commissioners of Inland Revenue or the Income Tax Commissioners concerned and the expression “income tax” includes “super-tax.”