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Report on an Ordinance intituled
7
544
An Ordinance to provide for the levy of the Estate
Duty payable in respect of the estates of deceased
persons.
The object of this Ordinance is to endeavour to place
upon a more regular and satisfactory footing than at present obtains the law and the administrative arrangements relative to the payment and collection of the duty leviable
upon the estates of deceased persons.
The present law, contained in Ordinance No.2 of 1897
and Ordinence No.16 of 1901, sections 22 to 27, is not
altogether satisfactory. The definitions of "property" are not exhaustive, and there exists no effective machinery
for enforcing a full disclosure of the property of a deceased person. The Ordinance therefore defines "property
in detail and provides the Commissioner with suitable
means for obtaining all the necessary information.
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The Ordinance also contains rigorous provisions im
posing upon various classes of persons against whom under
the present law it would be impossible to proceed the
obligation of seeing, so far as they are concerned, that
the law shall be carried out; the principle involved being
that it is the duty of persons cognisant of property, a
portion of which belongs to the revenue of the Colony, to
assist Government in ensuring that its revenue shall not
be defrauded. In this connection the Ordinance also pro-
vides that a schedule of property shall be attached to
every Probate or Letters of Administration and throws an
obligation on any person who deals with the property of a
deceased person after the grant of Probate or Letters of
Administration, of making certain that all the property