PAYMENT OF STAMP DUTY

Dominion, Volume 22, Issue 183, 1 May 1929, Page 3

PAYMENT OF STAMP DUTY

USE OF FRANKING MACHINE WRONG. By Telegraph.—Press Association. Palmerston North, April 30. Au important ruling has been given by the Stamp Duties Department on the question of the mode of payment of stamp duty on agreements and other documents required to be stamped, arising out of a case in the local Magistrate’s Court, in which a hire purchase agreement had been stamped to the amount of one shilling and threepence by the' use of a franking machine. Counsel contended that the use of such machines was illegal. The question was accordingly submitted by the Court to the Stamp Duties Department at Wellington, from whom the following reply has been received: — “The impressing by the use of a recording machine on the above described instrument of stamp values to the amount of Is. 3d. does not make the document a duly stamped instrument. Provision is made in sectiou 17 of the Post and Telegraph Act for the use of recording machines for the purpose of. prepayment of postage and charges on telegrams, in addition to the payment of stamp duty upon receipts. There is no other purpose for which the recording machine can be used. The amount of Is. 3d. so impressed on the document has been treated ns money paid to the Post Office for services, whereas had the document been properly stamped, the amount of the duty would have been paid into public account as part of the public revenue derived from taxation.”