In case the sale of an estate were de dared void, through defect of title, the duty that had been paid might be claimed again within three months after the time when the defect had been discovered.
It was very common to stipulate that the buyer should pay the amount of duty in addition to the sums bid by him.
The duty on sales by auction in Great Britain was first imposed during the American war, in 1777 (17 Geo. III. c. 50), and in Ireland in 1797. In the last twenty years the amount of goods sold in the United Kingdom on which aaction-duty was charged has varied from 10,148,5711. in 1825, to 6,326,4811. in 1831; and the amount of the duty has been ashigh as 328,8331. and as low as 218,084/. In 1840 the duty was 320,0581. charged on sales amounting to 8,720,9851. In 1841 the duty amounted to 314,067/. ; 296,9641. in 1842, and 284,916/. in 1843. In 1842 it appears, from a table in MgCul loch's Dictionary, that the duty arose from the several articles enumerated below :— During the sitting of the Commissioners of Excise Inquiry theywere waited upon by seven of the most eminent auctioneers in London, who represented that the duty of sevenpenee in the pound, equivalent to three per cent. on the amount of the pur chase-money, had for some time past mused a rapid and universal decrease in the number of actual sales by auction. One auctioneer stated that, in conse quence of all sales of property in Chancery being exempt from auction-duty, "many bills are filed in the Court of Chancery, when the property is large, for no other purpose than saving the auction-duty, notwithstanding the great amount of law expenses." Another of the deputation com plained of the duty as " an unequal, op pressive, and impolitic tax," and s that instead thereof "there an additional ad valorem duty of one per cent. upon all transfers of real property, conveyed by deed or written instrument, whether sold by auction or private con tract." The Commissioners in their re
port (twelfth) state that the auction-duty " to great objections, and should be "wholly repealed as soon as practicable." They conceive that this impolitic tax has been "borne with patience solely in con sequence of the exemptions, either direct or indirect, which the more powerful interests of the country, manufacturing and agricultural, have succeeded in obtaining from its operation." In consequence of these representations the auction-duties were repealed in 1845. and the recom mendation of the Commissioners adopted.
The Romans imposed taxes on the pro duce of certain sales, and it may be pre sumed on all such sales, whether public or private. In the time of Augustus (Dion Cassius, lv. 31), a tax of two per cent. was imposed on the produce of sales of slaves. This tax is spoken of by Tacitus (Ann. xiii. 31) as being then a tax of four per cent. (if the reading is right). In the time of Nero it was enacted that the seller should pay the tax, from which it may be inferred that the buyer had hitherto paid it. The buyers of slaves were generally Romans, and the sellers were foreign dealers. This change in the mode of paying the duty was called a re mission of the tax, but as Tacitus observes, it was a remission in name, not in effect, for the tax was still paid by the purchaser in the shape of a higher price. After the civil wars, and during the time of tus, a tax of one per cent. was imposed on the produce of sales by auction at Rome. In the time of Tiberius the tax was re duced to one-half per cent. (Tacit., Ann. 1. 78, ii. 42); but after the death of Seja nos it was again raised to one per cent. Caligula (Suetonius, Calig. 16) remitted the tax again, by first reducing it to one half per cent., and then remitting it al together. (Dion Cassius, lviii. 16, and the note of Reimarus.)