The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1885-06-13 00:00:00

CORPORATE PROPERTY AND LEGACY

DUTIES.

An official memorandum has been issued from the
Treasury relating to the Customs and Inland Revenue
Bill, 1885—that is, the Budget—explanatory of the
proposals in the bill affecting the duties (1) on pro-
perty of bodies corporate and unincorporate, and (2)
on accounts and successions and legacies.
The former subject is dealt with in Clauses 19 to
28. By this part of the bill an annual tax of five
per cent, is imposed on the profits or income of pro-
perty belonging to corporations. This is an entirely
new tax, imposed tecause corporate property at pre-
sent escapes probate and legacy or succession duties.
The tax applies both to real and personal property,
and is to be charged on the profits or income after
deducting all necessary outgoings, which are the same
as those allowed under the existing law as to succes-
sion duty. The following classes of property are ex-
empt from the tax: Crown property; property legally
appropriated to any public or semi-public purpose, to
religious or charitable purposes or to the promotion
of education, literature, science, or art; property
belonging to friendly socfeties or savings banks, or
belonging to trading companies if already liable to
legacy or successive duties; and property acquired by
Corporations within the last thirty years. The new
tax is to be considered a stamp duty, a first charge on
the property, and is to be under the control of the
Board of Inland Revenue. The Corporation and
every accountable officer thereof is to be answerable
for the payment. Each Corporation is to send,
under penalties, on October 1 of every year, a return
to the Board, stating its gross income and the deduc-
tions o!aimed, with other particulars, whereon the
Board may assess the tax, subject to an appeal to the
High Court of Justice. If proceedings are taken in
any court of law for the administration of property
subject to the tax, the Court is to provide for the
payment.

The new duties on property devolving by death are
dealt with in Clauses 29 to 35 of the hill. There are
at present four such taxes, called respectively probate,
account, legacy, and succession duties. Successions
to personal property under will, intestacy, or voluntary
deeds are liable to two of these taxes, probate or
account duty, and legacy or succession duty; whereas
personal property passing by marriage settlement and
successions to real property are liable to succersion
duty only. The bill will remedy this anomalous state
of things by imposing an actual probate or account
duty, or an equivalent tax, on all property passing on
death by will or by settlement. Probate or account
duty will be imposed on property locally situated
abroad belonging to a person domiciled in the United
Kingdom, and certain estates par attire vie; on real
estates directed to be sold by will, or held on trust for
sale; and on all money charged on real estate by will,
other than charges by way of annuity. All these are,
under the existing law, exempt from probate duty.
The 1 per cent, legacy and succession duty on pro-
perties where this new probate and account duty
is paid will be abolished. Increased succession or
legacy duty will be imposed as an equivalent of the
probate duty on all successions which do not pay
probato or account duty. The increase will be 2 per
cent, to the existing 1 per cent., and 3 per cent. to all
the other existing rates. Husbands and wives, who
now pay probate and account duty, will be brought
into charge for legacy and succession duty at the rate
of 3 per cent, in respect of property which does not
pay probate or account duty. In the case of personal
property settled on a husband or wife for life, with
remainder to lineal issue or lineal ancestors, the duty
is to be paid at once and for all. In future real pro-
perty to be enjoyed by a person absolutely or as tenant
in tail will be taxed upon the capital value, and not
only on the life interest, but this tax will only have to
be paid, as well as the tax on charges on real estate,
by way of annuity, in four annual instalments. The
bill shortens the period for payment of account duty
to three months. Leaseholds which already pay pro-.
bate duty will not be additionally taxed, and rever-
sionary rights already sold will not be charged to the
new tax.