CO129-423 - Governor Sir May - 1915 [7-8] — Page 548

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Report on an Ordinance intituled

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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