Instruments reported
The Committee has considered the following instrument,
and has determined that the special attention of the House should
be drawn to it on the ground specified.
1 S.I. 2004/3208: unjustified breach of the 21-day
rule
Stamp Duty Land Tax (Land Transaction Returns) Regulations
2004 (S.I. 2004/3208)
1.1 The Committee draws the
special attention of the House to these Regulations on the ground
that there was an unjustified breach of the 21-day rule.
1.2 These Regulations were made
on 7 December, laid before the House on the same day, and came
into force on 8 December. They therefore contravened the 21-day
rule mentioned in paragraph 5.4.13 of Statutory Instrument Practice,
which requires that instruments subject to annulment should normally
not be brought into force until 21 days after laying.
1.3 In the Explanatory Memorandum
to the Regulations, H.M. Treasury explained that the 21-day rule
was contravened in order to meet a release date of 6 December
for the online and CD-ROM versions of the Stamp Duty Land Tax
return form, and that timely release would provide customers with
further options for completing returns electronically, thereby
helping to speed the conveyancing process and reducing costs for
practitioners and the Inland Revenue. Regulation 3 of this instrument
contains the relevant amendment. The Department did not explain
why an unrelated amendment in regulation 4, which increases the
powers of the Inland Revenue to enquire into transactions, could
not have been brought into force on a later date.
1.4 In a further memorandum (printed
at the Appendix) submitted in response to a question from the
Committee, the Department explains why regulation 3 could not
have been made sooner so as to avoid the breach, and acknowledges
that there was no justification for bringing regulation 4 into
force as quickly as possible. Regulation 4 could easily have
been expressed to come into force on a date which would have allowed
the 21 day rule to be met in respect of that regulation, and the
Committee therefore reports these Regulations for an unjustified
breach of the 21-day rule in this respect, acknowledged by the
Department.
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