File 868/1904 Pt 1 'Consular: Exemption of Foreign Consular Officers from Imperial and Municipal Taxation' [‎186v] (72/113)

No. 2.
Foreign Office to India Office The department of the British Government to which the Government of India reported between 1858 and 1947. The successor to the Court of Directors. .
Foreign Office,
£j rj 9tli April 1875.
AVith reference to your letter* of the ;Ast March, on the subject
„ _ T • . i of the claim of tlie Turkish Oonsul-
Not pnnte * General at Bombay to exemption
from the payment of municipal rates and taxes, and in which you state
that, before conceding that claim, the Marquis of Salisbury would wish
to be informed whether a similar exemption is allowed to Turkish
consular officers in this country, Malta, and the Colonies, and also
whether the Consuls of those States who have a most-favoured nation
clause in their treaties could claim a similar exemption, I am directed
by the Earl of Derby to acquaint you in reply, for the information of
Her Majesty’s Secretary of State for India in Council, that at the
present time Turkish Consuls generally in this country and the Colonies
are not exempt from payment of taxes, owing to the circumstance of
their not having made application for such exemption.
In two instances where that privilege has been claimed, namely, by
the Turkish Consul in London in 1815 and by the Turkish Consul-
General at Manchester in 1863, it was conceded, and Lord Derby is not
aware of any reason why a similar exemption should not be granted to
any other Turkish Consul in this country or in the Colonies who might
apply for it; neither, in His Lordship’s opinion, can a similar exemption
be refused to the Consuls of any other foreign States who may have in
their treaties with this country most-favoured nation clauses in respect
to Consuls.
With regard to the concluding remark in your letter to which I am
now replying, that “ Rates are clearly taxes on real property,” and that
therefore Turkish Consuls cannot claim immunity from them, I am
directed to request that you will move the Marquis of Salisbury to
favour Lord Derby with further information as to his views upon this
point, as His Lordship is at present unable to see upon what grounds
a distinction is drawn between municipal rates and municipal taxes,
both being similarly levied upon the tenant and not upon the landlord
or possessor of real property.
I am, &c.,
Tenterden.
The Under Secretary of State
for India.
No. 3.
India Office The department of the British Government to which the Government of India reported between 1858 and 1947. The successor to the Court of Directors. to Foreign Office.
India Office The department of the British Government to which the Government of India reported between 1858 and 1947. The successor to the Court of Directors. ,
My Lord, Gth May 1875.
I am directed by the Marquis of Salisbury to acknowledge the
receipt of your letter of the 9th ultimo, and to acquaint you, in reply,
that under the explanation therein furnished His Lordship is prepared
to concede to the Turkish Consul-General at Bombay the privilege of
exemption from such municipal rates and taxes as, under the Bombay
Municipal Act, 1872, of which a copy is enclosed, are charged upon
occupiers, and that instructions in
* See Political Despatch to India, No. 54, this sense will be at OUCe sent to
of 6th May 1875. the Government of India.*
Under these circumstances, it does not appear necessary to discuss
further the general question of the difference between a municipal rate
and a municipal tax, but I am directed to point out, for Lord Derby s
information, that by Sections 66 and 69 of the Act above mentioned,
the rate of 5 per cent, levied on the annual value of houses, buildings,