The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1881-04-09 00:00:00

THE "DEATH DUTIES."

The Tiines, in a leader, commenting upon Mr. Gladstone's
proposed alterations in the probate duties, remarks:—

The number of anomalies in the "death duties" is
surprisingly great. The fact is that this source of
revenue, which some modern economists maintain
should bear the chief burdens of the State, which
appears to be easy to collect, and which has so many
features to recommend it to a financier, was not early
made use of; it was at first only tentatively and par-
tially employed; and legislation respecting it is still
loose and far from coherent. The Income Tax Acts
are a model of scientific legislation compared with
the mass of statutes which regulate the "death
duties." Mr. Gladstone alluded to the privileged
position property in mortmain as indefensible, and
certainly it is not easy to justify its immunities.
Every time that the property of a private person
changes hands and every time that the owner dies the
State will insist on imposing a fine, not always mo-
derate. A corporation, however, never dies. Its mem-
bers disappear; but the legal persona remains; and so
under cover of this fiction a vast amount of property
escapes heavy charges to which the estates of private
owners are subject. Mr. Gladstone does not mean to
deal with this question at once, and it is far from easy;
but he gave the House to understand that hii well-
known objections to the exemption of corporate property
from charges corresponding to succession duty are un-
impaired. For similar reasons, he is obliged to post-
pone attempting to remove the inequalities which exist
between settled and unsettled personal property, to
the great advantage of the former. The main changes
which he proposes to make relate to the probate and
legacy duties. Here, too, though there has been much
tinkering and patching, the existing regulations
are far from what they ought to be. The first
conception of a probate tax was to impose a tax
of ss. upon every skin or piece of vellum
or parchment upon which any probate of will
or letters of administration of estates above the
value of £2O were engrossed. No care was taken to
go into fine distinctions of value or consanguinity.
This rude system was tinkered repeatedly, and in 1815
a distinction for the first time was drawn between
grants of probate under wills and letters of adminis-
tration, the latter being subjected to a scale of duties
50 per cent. more than those payable on property
which had passed by will. The inequalities which
were allowed to grow up were not a little offensive to
good sense. Small estates paid more in proportion
than large estates. The scale was determined accord-
ing to no particular principle. Even the fundamental
distinction between property which passed by will
and that which passed without it was not wholly
rational. It was supposed that a person who
neglected to make a will ought to suffer. Unfor-
tunately, the punishment intended for him fell
elsewhere. The man who died intestate did nob pay
the penal tax. It was his representatives, often his
children, who suffered for a shortcoming which was
not theirs. Much though the tax has been improved
by. recent legislation, including the Act of last year,
it is still open to criticism on the score of inequality
and complexity. Much the same may be said of legacy
duties, which are of still more recent creation. They,
ia fact, go back only to 1780. They were at first only
theotamp duties paid upon receipts given by bene-
ficiaries in respect of what they had received. In coarse
of time the Legislature interposed with the view of
creating rates of duty varying acoording to consan-
guinity: Most of ns
low by experience the terrible in-
tricacy in regard to this branch of taxation. An executor's
duties are rendered onerous in no small degree owing
to the hopeless complexity of the subject. The duty
is not levied once for all. It may be payable in many
instalments,, falling due on various contingencies and
many years after the death of the testator. Assess-
ments of the same property or fund have to be made
from time to time, and three or four different persons
may have to pay in succession legacy duty in respect
of the same capital. It is not impossible for a per-
son to be called upon to contribute his quota of
legacy duty, in respect of property which has paid
it half-a-dozen times before. The plan which Mr.
Dodds repeatedly submitted to Parliament was to
substitute a combined duty in lieu of probate and
eppy. dutie'
a and to ignore differences in con-
sanguinity. Mr. Gladstone has not adopted this
course. lie thinks, and most persons will agree with
him, that a son or daughter ought not to be taxed so
heavily as a stranger who comes in for a legacy.
Strangers admit as much; and Mr, cllad!;tone inen-
tioned that almost all the daccliies of the legacy duty
Department wen witn those who pay 1 per cent.—that
is, near relatives, while people subject to the higher
rates of duty "say them with comparatively great
cheerfulness. To get rid of some of these complica-
tions, he proposes to make it optional for all parties
interested to pay duty once for all in the form of an
augmented probate duty 015 per cent. He proposes also
to abolish the per cent. now payable by lineal issue
or lineal anctstors, and to add to the probate
, duty. The result will be to cut all connexion
between an estate and Somerset House after one pay-
ment; to prevent complex transactions; to abolish a
vast amount of clerical work in the Revenue Depart-
ment ; and to strip the tax of its inquisitorial cha-
racter. Mr. Gladstone has one or two minor pro-
posals designed also to save trouble, It is pretty
clear that, if adopted, they will lighten the burdens
of a trustee or executor. If the Budget contained no
other proposal than that which is intended fox the
benefit of estates not exceeding £3OO, it would be
grateful to those who lcrlew by experience the help-
lessness and perplexity of poor and uneducated per-
pounds.
sons who have a windfall of one or two hundred