2 Guide to the House-tax Acts. By Arthur M. Ellis,
LL.B. (Stevens and Sons.)—This is a useful little book on a subject that is naturally more or less obscure, owing to the utter impossibility, in these days of fists and tenement-dwellings, of defining what a house, and still more what an inhabited house, is. The upshot of the book is similar to the answer given by the sticking solicitor in his examina- tion, when asked what course be should adopt on behalf of his client under given circumstances, and replied :—" Lay a case before counsel. If you want to know whether you are liable to House-duty, ask a lawyer, and do not attempt to decide for yourself."—Income-ter Laws. By Stephen Dowell. (Butterworths.)—The same remark applies even more strongly to Mr. Dowell's treatise on the Income- tax Acts. These Acts are extremely complicated in their provisions as to the authorities who are to assess, collect, and to be appealed to as regards the imposition of the Income-tax. But as the provisions of the Acts which impose the actual charge, though in many respects illogically arranged, as, for instance, in mixing up employments in the public service with employments under companies, are so wide. sweeping as to bring in almost every conceivable source of income, their complexity is not of great practical disadvantage.
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