SUCCESSION DUTY

Grey River Argus, 20 September 1945, Page 5

SUCCESSION DUTY

JUDGMENT GIVEN NEW PLYMOUTH, Sept. 19. New' I F'lvmou t th at Council from succession duty, Judge I all ’ a reserved judgment given at New Plymouth, answered a question ol considerable interest and importance to local authorities. It is the mst time the point has been decided in New Zealand. . Th eproceedings arose out of the will of Miss Clarice Allan Douglas. She made other bequests to the Borough Council, but this was the only one in which -no object was named and the Commissioner of Taxes, ruling that the gift was not charity within the meaning Oi the Death Duties Act, 1921, sought to collect succession duty totalling £I?J. It was against this that the administrators of the estate appealed. After making a number ot bequests to the Borough Council for specific purposes, as well as charitable gifts and private legacies, the will directed that the residue of the estate should be disposed of in proportions of one-half to the Methodist Home and Maori Mission Department, onequarter to the Women’s Christian Temperance .Union at New Plymouth and one-quarter to the “Corporation and Borough of New Plymouth.” That was the sole direction regarding the borough’s share of the residue. The judgment said the question was whether this share of the residue was thus, “properly left by the will of deceased and held on any charitable trust in New Zealand.” The Judge held that it was a charitable trust and was exempt from succession duty.