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Objects and Reasons.
1. The object of this Ordinance is to amend the Estate Duty Ordinance, Ordinance No. 16 of 1915, in various ways suggested by the practical working of the Ordinance. Some of the amendments now proposed are intended to bring the Ordinance into closer agreement with the Finance Act, 1891, 57 & 58 Vict. e. 30. Others are designel to prevent evasion of estate duty.
2. When the principal Ordinance, which came into force on the 1st January, 1916, was enacted it contained a provision that in the case of persons dying before the commencement of the Ordinance the probate duty formerly payable under the Stamp Ordinance, 1901, should continue to be payable instead of the new estate duty. When the Stamp Ordinance, 1901, was replaced by the Stamp Ordi- nance, 1921, the above temporary and limited provision was still further limited by a provision that estate duty and not probate duty should be payable in the case of any esta te to which representation was applied for after the commencement of the new Stamp Ordinance, whatever the date of the death of the deceased. In the revision of the Ordinances in 1924, the effect of the latter provision was incorporated in section 2 of the Estate Duty Ordi- nance in such a way, through an oversight, as to make the latter Ordinance applicab'e only to cases where application for representation is made after the 1st May, 1921. But Estate Duty is a matter which attaches on the death of a person, wholly irrespective of representation being taken out to his estate. Section 2 therefore amends section 2 of the principal Ordinance by making the Ordi- nance applicable to all deaths after 1st January, 1916, and also to deaths before that date if representation has not been applied for before the 2nd May, 1921.
3. Section 3 (1) of this Ordinance amends section 3 (1) of the principal Ordinance by defining the expressions "Account", "Affidavit for the Commissioner ". "applica- ble Schedule" and "Estate" and by substituting revised definitions for the definitions of "Commissioner",
"Pre- scribed" and Property ". In the definition of the term "Commissioner" a reference to the Treasurer is inserted in place of the former reference to the Registrar of the Supreme Court, because the Treasurer was substituted for the Registrar as Commissioner by order of the Governor published in the Gazette of the 11th January, 1924. The definition of the term Commissioner is also altered so as to include any Deputy Commissioner of Estate Duty. This is done in order to give such Deputy Commissioner the powers of the Commissioner.
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Section 3 (2) amends section 5 of the principal Ordi- nance, which deals with property passing on death, by adding a paragraph in respect of specialty debts derived from section 39 of the Revenue Act, 1862.
4. Section 6 of the principal Ordinance contains a list of properties in respect of which estate duty is not payable. After the principal Ordinance was passed, though before it came into operation an addition had been made by legislation (Ordinance No. 31 of 1915, s. 7) to the classes of property not chargeable with estate duty, i.e., shares in China companies. Section 4 of this Ordinance now adds that class to the list in section 6 of the principal Ordinance.
5. Section 5 of this Ordinance amends section 8 of the principal Ordinance so as to make it correspond more closely with the language of section 6 (2) aud (4) of the Finance Act, 1894, because it is considered desirable to make it clear that duty is to be paid on delivery of the affidavit and account. Section 8 (6) is amended by the deletion of words which were deleted in 1896 from section 6 (6) of the Act.
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