The Gazette 1909-10

The Gazette of the Incorporated Law Society of Ireland.

[AUG., 1909

Acts from the purview of the new taxes and their attendant valuations. The scope of the Land Purchase (Ireland) Acts, as distinct from the Land Law (Ireland) Acts, is not limited to agricultural land ; and a large portion of the lands comprised in the estates sold thereunder consists of demesne lands sold for distribution or re-purchase, residential holdings, holdings adjoining towns, villages, and other non-agricultural interests in land. All these classes of property are prima facie liable under the Bill to the Incre ment Value Duty and the Duty on undeveloped land, and presumably it will be necessary before a distribution of the purchase moneys can be effected to segregate the purchase moneys of the non-agricultural portions of each estate, to furnish valuations thereof, and to provide for the duty (if any) chargeable thereon. 3. The proposed method of exemption of agricultural land from Increment Duty, not withstanding the fact that this tax will not be leviable thereon, will moreover necessitate the furnishing of valuations at the owner's expense to the Revenue authorities in order to prove that agricultural land " has for other purposes no higher value than its value for agricultural purposes," and the Council urges on the Irish Parliamentary Representatives the expediency of obtaining specific exemption of agricultural land in Ireland, not only from the Increment Duty, but also from the Reversion Duty and the duty on undeveloped land and mineral rights, and from the unnecessary and costly valuations entailed by all these taxes. 4. The provision in the Bill that the new Land Taxes shall take priority to existing in- cumbrances is inequitable, and express pro vision should be made rendering these taxes puisne to incumbrances created prior to the passing of the Bill. 5. The repeal of the proviso contained in section 7, sub-section (5), of the Finance Act, 1894, will involve a most serious incre'ase in the amount of Estate Duty, Settlement Estate Duty, and Succession Duty payable by the tenant-farmers of Ireland. Hitherto the assess ment of the tenant's interest could not exceed twenty-five times the Poor Law valuation of the holding, with full deduction for rent or pur chase annuity, taxes, repairs, and other out goings, but in future the assessment will be on the full value of the tenant's interest at its " normal market price " without any deduction whatever. At a moderate estimate the effect will be to render liable to these Death Duties each year additional property, heretofore un-

taxed, to the value of ^£5,000,000, all of which additional taxation will have to be borne by the tenant-farmers of Ireland. The tenant's interest moreover is not, even when bought out under the Land Purchase Acts, deemed to be real estate for the purpose of the Death Duties, and these heavy duties are payable under the existing law in a lump sum with interest from the day of the death and before a grant of Probate or Administration can be taken out, in distinction from all other landed property in every part of the United Kingdom. 6. The doubling of the ad valorem duty on Conveyances of land will weigh with special severity on the tenant-farmers of Ireland. Land in Ireland, particularly under the opera tion of the Irish Land Acts and the Land Purchase Acts, is vested in a very large number of small proprietors, and the purchase of hold ings or small parcels of land is an usual method of investment of the savings of the people. For these reasons and by reason also of the facilities afforded by the State for registration of titles, transfers of agricultural land in small parcels are proportionately more frequent in Ireland than in other parts of the United King dom, and in consequence this double stamp duty will be more often leviable in this country than elsewhere, and on a class of taxpayers little able to bear increased taxation. 7. The severity on Irish farmers of the double Conveyance duty is accentuated by the fact that on the occasion of a transfer of a farm which has been purchased under the Land Purchase Acts the stamp duty on the deed of transfer is assessed not only on the consideration money for the purchase, but also on the capitalized redemption value of the long-term purchase annuity payable to the Land Commission, which is added to the actual purchase-money for the purpose of assessing the duty. 8. The powers given to the Taxing Authori ties by this Bill to finally determine cases in which the new land taxes are to be levied, and the value of the landed property on which these taxes and the Death Duties are to be assessed, without appeal to the ordinary courts of the land are in the highest degree objectionable if not unconstitutional. 9. The cumulative effect of the new Land Taxes, the increase in the Death Duties, and the doubling of the stamp duty on Conveyances constitutes an undue burden on land, will tend to a diminution in investments on mortgages on the security of land and in the purchase of ground rents and also in the number of trans fers of holdings, may imperil the punctual