The Sun.
London, England, 1860-09-07 00:00:00

THE SUN, LONDON, FRIDAY EVENING, SEPTEIVIBER 7, 1860

merits chargeable only with 2s. 6d. as agreements were used •
to supply the place of leases, which if made would be liable
to higher duties. To protect the revenue from the loss the
above alteration was effected, an agreement for a lease being
now required to be stamped with ad valorem duty as a
lease, the lease itself, if it should at any time be made,
being chargeable only with the duty of 2s. 6d. If, how-
ever, a lease so stamped be required for the sake of evidence,
a denoting stamp, testifying the payment of the full and
proper duty on the agreement, will be impressed thereon.
The duty of £2 ss. upon a bill of exchange for any sum
of money exceeding £4,000 has been repealed, and in lieu
thereof an ad valorem duty of 10s. for every £l,OOO or frac-
tional part of £l,OOO, has been imposed upon bills exceeding
£4,000. A similar relative alteration has been made in the
duty upon a foreign bill drawn in a set of three or more,
each bill of a set being now liable to the duty of 3s. 4d.
We have not thought it necessary to provide a separate
and distanct stamp for every possible amount for which a
bill may be drawn above £4,000, it being immaterial whe-
ther the requisite amount be designated by one stamp only

or any number of stamps.
A foreign bill of exchange, draught, or order, payable on
demand, drawn out of the United Kingdom, has been made
liable to the same rate of duty as a bill of exchange payable
otherwise than on demand.
Draughts on bankers, payable on demand to self, and pre-
sented by the drawer or his servants, were considered ex-
empt from stamp duty. No good reason could be assigned
for such an .exemption, and it gave rise to difficulties in
practice. It has now been repealed, and with it the exemp-
tion of letters sent to bankers by post, ordering the remit-
tance or appropriation of money, has been swept away.
It is not material what shape the order assumes, or in
what words it is framed. A letter to a banker requesting
him to send money to the writer, whether in cash or by a
bank post Fill, or in any other way, or directing him to pro-
vide for payments at any place, in discharge of acceptances
or otherwise, must, as well as instructions in any other form
to make or advise payments, be stamped ; in short, any
writing by which a banker is authorised to debit the custo-
mer's account is within the scope of the act. But a letter
from abroad, sent to a banker here, directing him to remit
or appropriate money, is not chargeable, inasmuch as a bill,
draught, or order drawn abroad is only liable to a stamp
when it is negotiated or presented for payment, and an order
sent to a banker without the intervention of a third person
is neither negotiated nor presented for payment. Where=
adhesive stamp is used for a draught or order it must be
cancelled or obliterated by the drawer, as required by the
16th and 17th Vic., cap. 59, by writing upon it his name or
initials, under a penalty of £lO ; and by the recent act the
banker is enjoined, under a penalty of £2O, further to obli-
terate the stamp by writing or impressing upon it the word
" paid."
The stamp duty upon a letter or power of attorney for
the sale, transfer, or acceptance of any of the Government
or Parliamentary stocks not exceeding in value £2O, or for
the receipt of any sum of money or check for any sum not
exceeding £2O, or for the dividends or interests for any such
stocks or funds, or any other periodical payments not ex-
ceeding the annual sum of £lO, is reduced from or £llos.
to ss. The following are the new duties :
A duty of ld. is imposed upon every certified copy or ex-
tract from any register of births, baptisms, marriages,
deaths, or burials. This duty is to be paid by the person re-
quiring the document. The duty attaches only to a certified
copy or extract from the registries, and not to the marriage
certificate itself, to which a duty of ss. attaches under pre-
vious Stamp Acts.
Any document authorising the purser or other officer of
a mining company conducted on the cost-book system to re-
gister any transfer of any share or shares, or any note of
such transfer, is liable to a duty of 6d.
Declaration, the same duty as would be chargeable on an
affidavit of the same nature.
The duty of id. is imposed on every document authorising
the delivery upon a sale or transfer of giiods of the value of
4s. or upwards, provided such goods be in a dock or port, or
in a warehouse in which goods are stored for rent or hire.
Two things are to be particularly noticed, viz., the order
must be made on sale or transfer of the goods, and the goods
must be lying in a dock, or port, or warehouse in which goods
are stored or deposited on rent or hire, or upon a wharf—
that is, the order must be given by the owner of the goods,
or his broker or agent, to deliver them to a purchaser, the
goods being in the custody of a dock company, or a ware-
house-keeper or wharfinger, or on board ship in port.
Where, therefore, the owner of the goods desires to take
them out for his own use, not having sold or transferred the
property in them, or contracted to do so, the order to deliver
them is not within the act; but if there be a sale or transfer
the stamp duty attaches, notwithstanding any attempt to
disguise the transaction by directing the delivery to be made
to the seller himself or his servant. A recourse to any such
mode of evading the duty would be, of course, fraudulent,
and would subject the person adopting it to a severe penalty.
Railway traffic involves the issue of numerous orders for
the delivery of goods conveyed, to which the Act has no re-
ference. But railway companies do not trade as carriers
alone ; they are also warehousekeepers ; they have, at their
various stations, warehouses in which goods are deposited
on rent ; and goods that may be lying in any of such ware-
houses are within the description of these for the delivery
of which, to purchasers, stamped orders are necessary, not-
withstanding warehouse rent may not be specifically charged
by the company for the particular goods. But where the
goods conveyed are not warehoused, the order for their de
livery, although upon a sale or transfer, does not require to
be stamped.
The foregoing remarks will apply also to canal companies.
An order to the owner's servant to deliver goods out of
his own warehouse is not within the contemplation of the
Act.

In some places a practice prevails for the purchaser of the
goods himself to sign what is, in form, an order for their
delivery, but which is of no effect until it is countersigned
or endorsed by the seller, or his broker or agent. This mode
requires the use of one stamp, as for one order only.
If an order direct the delivery of separate quantities of
goods to different purchasers, it is to bo treated as several
orders, and stamped accordingly.
The liability to the duty is not affected by any peculiarity
of terms used in the order. A direction to transfer the
goods, or to weigh them over, where the purchaser intends
to continue them in the same custody, must be stamped as
an order to deliver.
A delivery order may be transferred from one to another,
whether by endorsement or otherwise, without a fresh
stamp, so long as the goods continue in the name of the
person giving the order.
In the absence of any express agreement between the
psrties upon the subject, it is to be understood that the duty
is to be borne by the person requiring the order ; but when
an adhesive stamp is used it must be affixed by the person
giving the order, who is to cancel and obliterate it by writ-
ing upon it the name or initials of himself, or a his firm or
principal, and the date of so doing.
By giving an unstamped order, or, if an adhesive stamp
be used, by omitting effectually to cancel it, a penalty of
£2O is incurred. And the same penalty is imposed for de-
livering out goods under the authority of an order not
stamped.
If, by reason of the goods not being of the value of 405.,
no stamp is used, it must be stated in the order that the
value is under that sum ; and where this is in any case done
the person having the custody of the goods is relieved from
the liability of giving effect to an unstamped order, not-
withstanding the value may exceed the amount. But by
untruly stating the value to be under 40s. a penalty of £2O
is incurred.
Any warrant or document commonly called a dock war-
rant, or any other writing or document which shall evi-
dence the title of any person therein named, or his assigns,
or the holder thereof, to the property in any goods, &c.,
lying in any dock or warehouse, or upon any wharf, signed
or certified by or on behalf of the company or person in
whose custody such goods maybe, is liable to the duty of 3d.
This duty is not limited to any particular form of docu-
ment used by dock companies, warehouse-keepers, or
wharfingers, to the exclusion of others. Any documents
issued by them, signifying, no matter in what terms, that
the goods they have are held for such owners, are liable to
the duty. It is the custom in the case of certain goods im-
ported (chiefly tea) to give out for the convenience of sell-
ing, besides the ordinary warrant, a document called a
" weight note," containing all the particulars in the war-
rant, and adapted for the insertion of others by the broker.
These cannot in reference to the contracts be distinguished
from ordinary warrants ; it is therefore considered that they
are strictly chargeable with the same duty.
Again, where the owner of goods sells any portion, and
authorises a transfer in the books of the holders into the
name of the purchaser, a certificate of the transfer given
to the new owner is in effect a dock warrant ; for, although
by a printed note it negatives the conferring of any property
in the goods, it would certainly seem to evidence the title of
the purchaser to them, as between himself and the com-
pany, which is all that the original warrant does.
A transfer of a warrant, by endorsement or otherwise, is
not liable to the duty.
Nor are warrants dated prior to the act.
The stamp, if adhesive, must be cancelled in the same
manner as that on a delivery order. No provision is made
as to the party by whom the duty is to be paid, but this
charge seems necessarily to lie on the person requiring the
warrant.

PROBATE, LEGACY, AND SUCCESSION DUTY.
An account of the amount of Probate Duty and Legacy and
Successi n Du'y received in the years ended the 31st o:
March, 1859 and 1860.

Year ended Year ended
March 31, 1859. March 31, 18,10
Probates of wills and letters of
administration .............. 1,338,088 1,333,206
Legacy duty .................. 2,211,819 1,528.245
Succession duty .............. t 601,773

3,540,907

3,4G3,226

We have succeeded in obtaining separate accounts of the
prodwe of legacy duty and succession duty for the last year.
For all practical purposes we believe that the figures are
sufficiently accurate, though no doubt there are instances
in which one or other of the duties has been carried to the
wrung account. This occurs chiefly in the cane of leasehold
property, which, for the purposes of the Succession Duty
Act, is to be deemed real estate. As it still remains per-
sonalty for orher purposes, and is distributable as such, it
is not surprising that it should be more generally included
in the account of persOnal property, and brought under the
operation of the legacy duty, than under that of successioli

duty. The whole amount of error in the classification pro-
bably does not exceed MO,OOO.
There is a class of cases whieh tend t) augment legacy
duty and to diminish succession duty, ii a different way.
There are cases in which bonds and other engagements have
been entered into for payment of money at death. Before
such engagements were liable to duty, that is, before the
passing of the Succession Duty Act, they were treated as
debts due from the estate of the deceased, and the amount
was deducted from the residue on which duty was payable.
But as a claim to make such a deduction would now have

the effect of raising a charge for succession duty, it is be-
lieved that the transaction is frequently kept out of the ac-
counts altogether, and unless it be alluded to in the will we

have no means of knowing its existence. There is of course

no impropriety in this, nor does it affect the revenue.

A question on the Succession Duty Act of some interest
in reference to the peculiar law of Scotland on the subject
of entails has recently been determined by the House of
Lords on appeal from the Court of Session, establishing the
uniformity of the application of the Act in the same re-
lative circumstances, throughout the kingdom, whatever
variance there might happen to be in the general law relat-
ing to the succession of property in the different parts of it,
_ _

and however inappropriate the free and popular style of the
act might appear to be to the legal technicalities' of any par-
ticular division of the kingdom.
The case alluded to is that of Lord Saltoun and the Lord
Advocate-General.
The majority of the judges in Scotland, on an appeal from
the judgment of the Lord Ordinary, determined that the
substitute nomination in a deed of entail, who acquired the
settled property on the death without issue of the institute
to whom, and to the heirs of whose body, it was given, de-

rived the property as a succession from the institute as the
predecessor, and not from the entailer, and was therefore
liable to duty according to the degree of relationship to him.
Lady Saltoun, in 1846, settled real estate in Scotland on
her eldest son, the late Lord Saltoun, and the heirs of his
body, who failing, on her grandson, the present Lord Sal-
toun, and the heirs of his body.
The late Lord Saltoun, the institute, dying without issue
in 1854, the present Lord Saltoun, the substitute nomination,
acquired the property in possession, and though thus named
inthe deed as a new stirps, he was, according to the law of
Scotland, obliged to make up title as heir of tailzie and pro-
vision to his uncle, and, having regard to the peculiarities
of the Scotch law of entails, the majority of the judges be-
low were of opinion that his uncle was the predecessor. On
appeal to the House of Lords their lordships reversed this
judgment, holding that the maker of the settlement was
the person from whom the interest of the successor was de-
rived within the meaning of the statute, and not the uncle,
to whom, in the language of Scotch feudal law, he was

served heir.
The Act 22d and 23d Viet., cap. 36, sec. 1, has intro-
duced a graduated scale of probate duty when the value
of personal estate exceeds £1,000,000. The number of in-
stances in which probates have been granted for property
upwards of £1,000,000 in value since the year 1815, when
the scale of duties now in force was introduced, is not con-
siderable, and though the amount of duty lost by reason of
the scale not ranging higher than a million has not been
large enough to have materially affected the revenue, yet,
apart fronA the reasonableness and justice of making these
large estates, though few in number, pay the proportionate
ad valorem duty, the rapid increase of the value of personal
estate acquired by the expansion of trade and enterprise in
modern times rendered it very proper that this extension of
the scale of charges should be made. The number of pro-
bate stamps of the " upper value" which have been issued
since 1815 is twelve. From 1815 to 1825 none were re •
quired. From 1825 to 1855 there were issued eight ; and
since 1855—that is, in four years and a half—four have
been issued, the last of them being in June, 1859, just be-
fore the passing of the Act which extended the scale.
The case of " The Attorney-General v. Brenning" has
established as law a point upon which our legal advisers
had always insisted, but as to which no opportunity of ob-
taining a judicial decision had previously arisen. The ques-
tion was, whether the purchase money of lands contracted to
be sold, but not conveyed in the lifetime of the vender, was
to be deemed part of his personal estate at his death for
which probate duty was payable.
Mr. Hope contracted with a trustee for a lady who was a
ward in Chancery to sell to her certain real property for
£115,000. The contract was approved by the Court, but
Mr. Hope died before it was carried out, and while he was
in possession of the land, and while the purchase money
(except a deposit) remained unpaid.
The Court of Exchequer held, upon somewhat technical
grounds, that the purchase money, or the right to acquire
it, was not part of the estate and effects of the deceased for
which probate was granted; but on appeal to the House of
Lords the judgment was reversed, their lordships being of
opinion that the right to enforce the contract being in the
executor, virtute offleii, the purchase money was legal assets
of the deceased, but that, whether it was legal or equitable
assets, it should have been included in the estimate made of
the value of his estate and effects on applying for probate.

LAND AND ASSESSED TAXES.
GROSS RECEIPT, 1858-9 AND 1859-60.

Year ended Year ended
31st March, 1859. 31st March, 1860,
Land-tax £1,135,677 £1,141,486
Inhabited houses
Servants
Carriages 306,761 319,334
Hoses 348,436 358,686
Dogs
llorse dealers
Hair powder
Armorial bearings
-53,583
-55,411

Game duty
Additional 10 per cent. per
Act 3d Vict., cap. 17

139,242

143,97:

15,300

16,011

Gross receipts £3,163,081

£3,241,107

We have no observation to make with regard to the pro-
duce of those duties in the last financial year, as compared
with the preceding; there is a trifling increase under each
head, but it is not sufficiently large to call for any special
observation. Some remarks, however, upon the present
system of assessment and collection will bo found in a later
part of our report.

PROPERTY AND INCOME-TAX.
GROSS RECEIPT.

Year ended Year ended
31st March, 1850. 31st Afarcll,lB6o.
Schedule A
" B
„ C
„ D
„ E

Gross receipts £6,812,232 £9,789,483

The income tax for the year 1859-60 was 9d. in the pound.
The original rate,—that is, the rate fixed by law, previous
to the financial measures of last year, was 5d., but an addi-
tion of 4d. was made by an Act passed in August, v ith a
proviso that the whole of that addition should be collected
on the payment of the first moiety of the tax.
The assessments for the past year have not yet been re-
ceived by us. Your lordships are aware that they remain
in the hands of the local commissioners.
In the year ended sth April, 1859, the annual value of pro •
perty assessed under Schedule A amounts to £137,667,000,
and exhibits, in comparison with the assessment under that
schedule for the year ended sth April, 1868, an increase of
£1,053,000.
This increase arises from an additional number of houses
having been brought into assessment, and from improved
returns under the heads of railways and mines.
In England the improvement amounts to £945,000, and
appears principally to have arisen in the following coun-
ties :

SCHEDULE A.
Assessment in Assessment in
1857-58. 1858-59. Increase
£ £ £
2,612,000 .. 2,632,000 .. 20,000
1,408,000 1,421,000 .. 13,000
1,197,000 1,214,00 17,000
2,396,000 .. 2,467,000 .. 71,000
2,252,000 .. 2,313,000 61,000

1,901,000 2;016,000 22,000

835,000 ..

.871,000

3,439,000 3 459, 000

having been ascertained by our officers from inspection of
the books of the firm, and with their voluntary assistance.
We regret that no proceedings for penalties were instituted

against these offenders. The officers who discovered that
some evasion of the duty had taken place thought it more
important to obtain payment of the deficiency than to
punish and expose the delinquents, and had agreed with
them before we heard of the case, that, in consideration of
a full disclosure of their accounts, there should be no prose-
cution.

We should not have taken this view of the sub-

ject, although the amount of duty recovered was consider-

able, and could not have been obtained by resort to legal
proceedings ; but we did not feel justified, after what had
passed, in suing for penalties.
In our second and third reports we stated that, in our
opinion, it would be very desirable to alter the present sys-
_ _

:em under which both the assessed taxes and the income.

tax arc at present assessed and collected. For some months

past our earnest attention has been specially directed to this
important object. It was suggested to us that, instead of a
general application of the principle of the assessment and
collection by officers appointed by the Government in lieu
of the present parochial officers, that system should be car-
ried into effect in those divisions only where the local com-
missioners might voluntarily desire it. It was believed that

a change thus introduced would, after a time, find favour
with all who had noted its working, and if not spontaneously
adopted in all the districts of the kingdom, might soon,
without fear of opposition, be made compulsory. But more
careful examination of the plan in detail, and an attempt
which we made to prepare for its execution, forced upon us

the conviction that it would be so liable to failure from

want of the necessary organisation in the particular locality
in which we might be called upon to act, that we could not
undertake the responsibility of recommending its adoption.
The present distribution of our officers throughout the
country not being made with reference to these new duties
which they would be required to perform, we should pro-
bably find ourselves, when called upon to provide for the
assessment and collection in a particular district, entirely
without the proper instruments for the purpose, and either
be obliged to resort to some imperfect temporary expedients,
or incur great and unnecessary expense in forming a special
establishment for that district alone. But the main objec-
tion to the scheme was the impossibility of working it upon
any uniform system. In each district our proceedings
would require to be regulated by a separate code of laws.
In one we might have the means of collecting from house
to house ; in another we should be obliged to exact from
the tax-payer an attendance at some fixed place of collec-
tion ; in a third we should require that attendance on cer-
tain fixed days to meet our collector on his rounds. Now
regulations such as these must Le supported by the sanction
of an Act of Parliament, and it is not easy to see how any
Act could have been framed for the purpose so as to meet
all the various circumstances of the different districts in
which it might come to be enforced.
We. therefore, have been obliged to abandon this scheme ;
but, in order to ascertain how far the principle upon which
we intended to proceed, of making the assessments and col.
lecting the duties through the instrumentality of Govern-
ment officers, instead of individuals appointed by the
parishes, would be acceptable to the local commissioners
throughout the country, we addressed a letter to the clerk
of each division (a copy of which will be found in the ap-
pendix), giving an outline of the proposed plan, and
inviting the commissioners to express their opinion of it.
Answers have been received up to the present time from
550 divisions out of 693, the total number in England and
Wales; and we regret to state, not only that the majority
of the commissioners are adverse to any change, but that
the terms in which that adverse opinion is conveyed are so
strong and decided as to lead to the conclusion that any
measure of the kind would encounter the most vehement
opposition in Parliament. Under these circumstances, we
cannot take upon ourselves the responsibility of advising
your Lordships at present to introduce the changes which
we advocate, although our views on this subject have not
been substantially altered by any of the representations
which have been addressed to us.