Practically the only rates in respect of which the owner may primarily be rated are a water rate, private improvement rate, and a sewers rate. And even in these cases it is the occupier who is rateable as a general rule. The circumstances under which the owner is charged are :—(a) In respect of a water rate, the rate is leviable upon the persons receiving the supply of water, i.e. the occupiers, except in the case of dwelling-houses or parts of dwelling-houses, occupied as separate tenements, where the annual value of the houses or tenements does not exceed £10, when it is leviable on the owners ; (b) A private improvement rate, which is payable on the full net annual value, is levied on the occupier, who can deduct three-fourths thereof from the rent, if a rack rent, or a proportionate part of the three-fourths if the rent is less than a rack rent ; and landlords who them selves hold for a term with a residue of not less than twenty years, are also entitled to deduct from the rent they pay such proportion of the sum deducted as the rent they pay bears to the rent they receive ; "rack rent " here means a rent not less than two-thirds of the full net annual value of the particular property. The sewers rate, in the metropolis, may be deducted by the tenant from his rent, or, if paid, recovered from his landlord in any case where the tenant would have had that privilege if the Metropolis Management Act of 1855 had not been passed.
Properties assessed.—The property in respect of which local rates are levied is, for practically all such rates, identical with that rateable for the poor rates. The modifications of this general rule occur in the highway, general district, water, private improvement, and metropolitan general, lighting, and sewers rates. And even in these cases, except the water and private improvement rates which are levied only upon the property actually related to the service causing the rate, the poor rate is the primary criterion. Highway rate is not levied upon property which had, or whose owner or occupier had, before the Highway Act, 1837, been legally exempt from the performance of statute duty or composition therefor, or from highway rate. The general district rate is not levied on any property so far as it is exempted from rating by a local Act in respect of purposes for which such a rate may be made, unless the Local Government Board otherwise directs. In respect of the metropolitan general rate, the rateability of hospitals, public schools, and other public buildings rated for paving at the time of the Metropolis Management Act, 1855, is still restricted to a like rate as then ; the lighting rate is not levied upon land which at the time of that Act was not rated in respect of the expenses of lighting ; and the sewer rate is not levied upon property entitled to exemption when the first commission was issued in 1846.
Such is some indication of the existing particular exceptions to the general rateability for the relief' of the poor. An enumeration of' the property chargeable to the poor rate will now be given. Briefly, it is lands, houses, tithes, and tithe rentcharge ; coal and all other mines : plantations, woods, saleable underwoods, sporting rights, and advertising stations. The authorities for this enumeration are the Poor Relief Act, 1601 (generally known in this connection as the Statute of Elizabeth), the Rating Act, 1874, and the Advertising Stations (Rating) Act, 1889. The Statute of Elizabeth enabled overseers to receive weekly or otherwise
(" by taxation of every inhabitant, parson, vicar, and others, and of every occupier of lands, houses, tithes impropriate, or propriations of tithes, coal mines, or saleable underwoods in the said parish, in such competent sum or sums of money as they shall think it convenient,") a sufficient stock of flax, hemp, wool, thread, iron, and other necessary ware and stuff' to set the poor on work, and also to raise " competent sums of money for, and towards the necessary relief of the lame, impotent, old, blind, and such other among them being poor and not able to work," and also for the putting out of poor children apprentices, "to be gathered out of the same parish according to the ability of the same parish." For a con siderable period of time it was a matter of doubt whether this enactment justified the rating of personal property, such as stock-in-trade, chattels, and money on deposit at a bank, and, as a consequence, the practice of overseers varied, both at different times and in different parts of the country. ln some instances there was a local usage to assess the stock of a particular trade ; in other instances the stock in all trades had been rated, in certain boroughs, even from the very date of the statute. But the practice of' rating in respect of' stock-in-trade never became a general one. And this was so notwithstanding it eventually became settled law, by means of judicial decisions, that stock-in-trade, if it be the pro perty of the person in possession, and productive, is properly rateable, even with out evidence of usage. Eventually the law was thus extensively stated: " The statute of 43 Elizabeth, c. § 1, embraces two classes of persons subject to taxation, occupiers of real property, and inhabitants in respect of personal pro perty. Hitherto rates upon the latter class Lave been in practice confined to stock-in-trade and shipping, but on future occasions other kinds of personal property may, perhaps, be rated and be held rateable." There have been no such future occasions, however, for that pronouncement was speedily followed in 1840 by an Act which specifically exempted stock-in-trade, and generally all other personal property. It provided that it should not be lawful for the overseers of any parish, township, or village to tax any inhabitant thereof, "as such inhabitant, in respect of his ability derived from the profits of stock-in-trade or any other property, for or towards the relief of the poor, provided that nothing contained in the Act should in anywise affect the "liability of any parson or vicar, or of any occupier of lands, houses, tithes impropriate, propriations of tithes, coal mines, or saleable underwoods, to be taxed under the provisions of the said Acts for and towards the relief of the poor." This Act, though passed only as a temporary measure, is in force to this day by virtue of the Expiring Laws Continuance Acts. And so stock-in-trade and all personal property are exeinpted from rateability for the poor.