The Legacy Duty, with the...
The Times, 1824-01-19T00:00:00

The Legacy Duty, with tehe.auxiliary imposts on pro- bates, letters of administration, &c., has often been alluded to in this journal. If we could grant to this subject an amount of space and of attention at all commensurate with the wide-spread influence of the above branches of taxation over the affairs of private life, and over the general comfort of society, every columnn of Tlhe Times, on each successive (lay of publication, would contain an echo of the murmuTs, the wailings, and the curses, poured out against them. We doubt, in fact, whether any fiscal burden ever fell upon the commuvity with a shock so barbarously timed, and so out of proportion to its advantages as a source of re- venue. The first moment of domestic anguish is that wherein the functionaiies of the law are authorized to prey upon the widow, the childless, or the fatherless. Duties are called for from a family, who, it is more than possible, have not the command of a shilling, except by converting a portion of that property which they are nevertheless forbid- den to touch, until they shall havepaid the King. Again, the tax must be advanced, in the first instance, upon the gross value of the property, without allowinig for debts or incum- brances, although a drawback is afterwards made of a part of the duty proportioned to the amount of " debts lawfully d due" at the time of the testator's or intestate's death. This grievance acts in sundry 'ways. First, suppose the deceased dies between the acceptance and payment of his bills to the amount of S,0o0l.; he leaves behind him a gross fortune of perhaps l0,000l; his acceptances, though justly due, are not grounds of action in a court of law. So that if the representative of the deceased should, lik-e an honest man, pay -of the acceptances, he cannot deduct the amount from the gross property, but must be charged with the duty on 10,0001., after he has, from the mere motion of his conscience, given up half of it. to protect th4e-memory of him to whom he succeeded.' In this view of the act of Parliameint, the tax may be termed an engine fof repressing the impulses, and for finally extinguislhing the sentiment, of spontaneous justice; deterring me'n in. all cases, and actually disabling them in many, from a fulfil- ment of the dearest obligations of morality, where not le& gally prescribed and enforced. For a second consecupence of this oppressive system, although ranging itself tunder the same principle, we refer to a communication from our cor- respondent "G T" The. case which he adduces is one of a Iarge *luty wrung from an insoltrent estate! where L-ere was not a penny forthcoming to pay debts amounting to 2,6001.; yet whvre the whole impost was inexorably levied. Such a staill as this upon the humanity of Eng- lish legislation ought surely not to be indelible. Besides, its grinding, capricious, and, as we have described it, de-. moralizing agency, the tax is of a nature so searching and' intrusive into the priyite tonCesns of liie, that we are asto- nished at its having survivedi the incomne~-tax, which owed its abolition more. exclusiveTy to the natralar abhorrence of Englishmen for inquisitorial expedients,' disturbing the.rer- pose of fahnilies,. and rans4cking the secrets.of the liviig: asid -the dead, tllan to any otber definite motive. Lastly, as. a matter of finance, tliWs leg4cy duty wiTl every' hour beedme less protductive. Prudent persons have for some years past been driven to the tiecessity of conveying, before dea'th, ulbat, under different circumstances, they would lhave devised by wi 1jahd their numberswill increase roplnyear to ye ar .ntil es ba be abated..