Catalogue description Records of the Supreme Court Taxing Office

The Supreme Court Taxing Office was formed in 1902 on the recommendation of a Departmental Committee, presided over by Lord Alverstone. Operating as a department of the Central Office, it undertook the taxation of costs for the Queen's Bench and Chancery Divisions of the High Court. In the Queen's Bench this work had fallen to the Masters' Office and, since 1879, to the Central Office; in Chancery it had been performed since 1842 by taxing masters specially appointed for that purpose.

The new Office was required to allow or disallow sums claimed by the one party in an action from the other or by solicitors from their clients. When a party had reason to complain of the manner in which costs had been taxed he could apply for their review and, if still dissatisfied, apply to a judge at chambers to determine whether the objection was well founded.

For some years the business of taxation of costs in bankruptcy cases, Companies Court matters, and cases involving the affairs of mentally sick persons was handled separately, but in the years 1928, 1957 and 1958 respectively it was brought under the direction of the Supreme Court Taxing Office. The Bankruptcy Taxing Office continued to operate in Bankruptcy Building in Carey Street until 1957 when it moved to the Royal Courts of Justice, being formally absorbed in the Supreme Court Taxing Office in 1964.

In the Court of Protection the Taxing Office maintains a separate branch attached to the court. In the Family Division the power to tax costs rests with a registrar of the Principal Registry and in the Admiralty Court with the registrar as was also the case in the former Probate, Divorce and Admiralty Division of the High Court.