66 / 364
Longford. He was admitted on i5th December,
1941 and practised with his father P. J. Branigan
under the name of T. W. Delany & Co., solicitors,
Longford.
BOOK REVIEW
A Guide to the Death Duties in Ireland,
by M. K.
O'Connor, barrister-at-law.
Published by
the
General Council of Provincial Solicitors' Associa
tions. 59 pages, (n.p.).
This booklet is based on a series of lectures given
by the author (who is a senior examiner in the
estate duty office—although the booklet is written
in his private capacity) to the Tipperary and Offaly
(Birr Division) Sessional Bar Association. While
it does not claim to be a treatise or even a synopsis
of the death duties, it is, nonetheless, a most valuable
guide to their main features. Its eight chapters deal
with : Legacy duty, estate duty, and succession duty,
their imposition and
the principal exemptions;
aggregation, accountability, liability and incidence
of estate duty, practice and procedure, and time for
payment and payment by instalments. It has three
appendices, giving the rates of duties and a memoran
dum of the estate duty office as to procedure with
the estate duty office in case of shares in private
companies.
It would be quite unfair to complain about
omissions in view of the declared limited intention of
the author, but if a further edition is, as we hope,
contemplated, it would not add greatly to the size
of the booklet—and would add considerably to its
value—if he would deal with accountability and
payment of legacy and succession duties as he does
for estate duty. A short chapter on practice and
procedure in regard to these two duties would also
be most helpful.
This guide should be of great assistance to the
student as well as to the practitioner. It is lucidly
and simply written. The chapter on aggregation is
particularly valuable.
A few minor corrections may be noted. On p. 14
the author remarks that it has "now been established"
that section 2 of the Finance Act 1894 is an expansion
of and explanatory of section i and is not a separate
charging section, contrary to what had hitherto
been assumed from the
Cotvley Case
(1895) i Q.B.
It should be emphasised that the case which "estab
lished" this proposition is an English decision
which need not be followed in this country.
On p. 15, the "and" at the beginning of the third-
last line should read "or". The correction alters the
sense of the entire statement.
On p. 17, paragraphs
(a)
and
(V)—
giving the two
"statutory exceptions"
to the rule that foreign
property on which no legacy or succession duty is
payable is also exempt from estate duty—are mis
placed. They should come immediately after the
words "two statutory exceptions". On the third-last
line of the same page, "under £5,000" should read
"not exceeding".
On p. 29, dealing with the 1961 change in aggrega
tion, it should be noted that the new provision
applies to persons dying
on or
after 28th July, 1961.
THE ESTATE DUTY OFFICE AND THE
PROFESSION
On 26th November, 1964 Mr. M. J. O'Connor,
barrister-at-law of the estate duty office gave a talk
to members in the Society's library. At the outset
the lecturer mentioned that historians and archaeolo
gists had discovered the existence of a form of
death duties in ancient Egypt which according to an
eminent authority was probably at the rate of ten
per cent. The lecturer stated however that in those
days it was likely that desk work was of minor
importance and that far more attention was given
to collection than to assessment. The lecturer traced
the course of the death duty code from 1774 to 1894
and the subsequent revenue statutes. He described
briefly the organisation of the estate duty office,
and the work of the various divisions dealing with
affidavits, deeds, wills, accounts and review and
certificates. The growth in the importance of the
work in the office from the point of the view of the
state was illustrated by the fact that the collection
had grown from £400,000 in 1896 to £3|-m. in the
last financial year. The expenses of administration
are 3J%. _
Describing the training of the officials the lecturer
quoted from an old manual which stated that the
new entrant in addition to his legal course "will
find it necessary to learn the customs of the stock
exchange and the practice of banking and to acquire
facility in reading trust accounts, balance sheets and
profit and loss accounts. .
.
. The new entrant
should also make himself acquainted with business
and financial methods with the framework of the
financial machine and with the ways of the world
generally. By doing so, he will help
to equip
himself to conduct the business of the office with
efficiency and economy of effort."
Having described the work of the various divisions
Mr. O'Connor dealt with a number of practical
points to which attention should be paid in com
pleting affidavits and forms and ways in which
unnecessary queries, with consequent delay, may
be avoided and illustrated by examples the type of
reply which necessitates sending back the form for
further information. He also dealt with the question