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The Gazette of the Incorporated Law Society of Ireland.
[JUNE, 1909
interest had to pay a stamp duty on the con
veyance which was assessed, not alone on the
cash consideration actually passing at the time
of the sale, but also on the amount which
might be due at the date of such sale on foot
of the advance which the Government had
made at the time the holding was vested.
Well, gentlemen, one of the proposals now
occupying the attention of Parliament is, that
the stamp duty, which was
IDS. per cent.,
should now be doubled, and that for the future
it should be charged at the rate of
£
i per
cent, on all conveyances. The effect of that
resolution will be to turn this grievance into a
real hardship, because, as you will understand,
purchasers in the future will have to pay^i
per cent., not only on the cash passing, but
also on the amount due to the Government in
respect of the holding which has been pur
chased.
I think the best way to explain this
is to take an example. We will say a tenant-
farmer who held his holding subject to a rent
of
£50 a.
year purchases from his landlord,
say, for twenty years' purchase. The Govern
ment advance the purchase-money, which, in
such a case, would amount to ^1000. And
assuming the occupier sold his interest in the
holding for ^500, the purchaser would have to
pay the stamp duty—will have to pay this
increased stamp duty of^i per hundred pounds,
not only on the ^500 which he is paying over
to the occupier, but also in respect of the
^1000 advanced, assuming that none of it had
been repaid at the date of purchase. That is
to say, he would have to pay 3 per cent, on the
purchase, and that, I believe, was never con
templated.
It certainly was not contemplated
at the time of the passing of the Land Pur
chase Acts, because you will recollect that one
of the inducements made at the time and held
out to Irish landlords and tenants to avail
themselves of the provisions of these Acts was
that no stamp duty was to be paid in respect
of money advanced in respect of the vesting
of the holdings in the tenants. Of course you
are aware the Chancellor of the Exchequer
now proposes to introduce several new taxes,
and to increase some of those already existing.
But, gentlemen, these questions of finance
and of policy which do not directly -affect
this profession, we do not discuss at
this
moment.
At the present moment what we
refer to in this resolution which the Council
have asked me to bring before you to-day are
matters which will affect even our own profes
sion, because it must tend to restrict the sales
of the holdings (hear, hear). You will see I
gave a case in point, which is, perhaps, only a
moderate one, to emphasize the effect of this
new stamp duty on agricultural holdings. But
you will see at once and make out for your
selves that in similar holdings the duty would
realby amount to more than the 3 per cent.,
and of course that would depend on the pur
chase-money and its relative proportion to the
amount outstanding to the Government. Under
these circumstances I have pleasure in sub
mitting this resolution for your consideration,
and, I hope, for your adoption.
MR. C. ST. G. ORPEN, Vice-President: I
have much pleasure in seconding the resolu
tion.
After what the President has said, I
need not say anything further.
MR. R. A. MACNAMARA: I would like to
say a few words on this subject. The duty
now charged on the capitalised value is really
charging duty on the rent. When a man
purchased his holding, as the President has
stated, he paid no duty except on the purchase-
money. The Government never attempted to
make him capitalize the rent and pay duty on
that.
The fact is, that now they treat the
amount borrowed from the Land Commission
as if it was a mortgage, and make him pay
duty, not alone upon purchase-money, but
upon rent. Of course we at one time raised
the question with the Revenue authorities, but
they held that without an Act of Parliament it
would be impossible to apply a remedy. We
consider that the time has now arrived when
we may have an opportunity of getting an Act
of Parliament by which this grievance might
be remedied, and we strongly urge on the
Government that in this respect the Finance
Bill ought
to be amended.
It is doubly
necessary now, as the duty having been raised
from ros. to
£i
per cent., it would be a great
grievance if they had to pay it (hear, hear).
MR. D. A. QUAID :
This question is a
very important one, and is deserving of the
support of the members of the Society and the
members of the profession generally. But I
think it is more than a question affecting us
professionally.
It is a public question, this
increase of duty upon the sale of holdings
throughout Ireland.
The weakness, to my
mind, of the resolution—if it is a weakness—
is that it does riot go far enough. Whereas
this practice of penalizing sales by tenant-
purchasers has existed for some years past, no
protest has been made against it, as far as I
understand.
If this mild resolution is passed,
the Chancellor of the Exchequer may take up