FROM
27
BURCHELLS,
LETTER TO
The Controller, Estate Duty Office.
SHEET NO.
4
DATE
10.7.36.
in concise terms :-
"25. (1) If estate duty has already been paid in respect of any settled property since the date of the settlement upon the death of one of the parties to a marriage, no estate duty shall be payable on the death of the other party to the marriage unless such person was at the time of his or her death or had been at any time during the continuance of the settlement competent to dispose of such property.
(2) For the purposes of this section, the term settlement means any deed, will, agreement for a settlement or other instrument, or any number of instruments, whether made before or after or partly before and partly after the commencement of this Ordinance, under or by virtue of which instrument or instruments any property, or any estate or interest in any property, stands for the time being limited to or in trust for any persons by way of succession, and the term settled property means the property comprised in a settlement".
Both the Chief Justice and the Full Court of the Colony
dismissed the Appeal of the Trustees and an appeal is contem-
plated to the Privy Council.
The attention of the Colonial Secretary has been drawn
to the passage on page 262 of Dymond on Death Duties (Seventh
Edition) which states that the expression "settled property" is
given a liberal construction and that the exemption from estate
duty is applied for instance to cases where the surviving spouse
had an annuity simpliciter under the Will of the other spouse.
Hanson on Death Duties (Eighth Edition) expresses on
page 105 the opposite view, however, and states that the gift
of an annuity simpliciter would not constitute a settlement.