DEATH DUTIES. The comprehensive Eng lish term for a variety of specific duties levied tinder acts of Parliament on the estates of de ceased persons. Included under the term are (1) probate ditties, (2) account duties, (3) legacy duties, (4) succession duties, and (5) estate duties.
The probate duty dates back to the year 1694, and was a stamp duty levied as the price of ob taining probate or letters of administration. It has now. since 1894, been superseded by the estate duty. The account duty was of later origin, and was payable by the beneficiary of a decedent. It has also been superseded by the estate duty. The legacy duty was created by statute 20 Geo. 111.. c. 28 (1780), and is a stamp tax on receipts given by legatees to executors for their legacies. It varies in amount from 1 to 10 per cent. of the legacy, according to the nearness of the relationship of the legatee to the decedent. 1Vhen the legatee is a lineal de scendant or ancestor of the deceased. the duty (1 per cent.) need not be paid if an estate or other death duty has been paid. Succession duty was created by act of Parliament in 1853 (16 and 17 Viet.. c, 51), and consists of a tax vary
ing from to 114!, per cent. (according to the degree of consanguinity) levied on the bene ficiary of real property passing by descent or otherwise on the death of another. The estate duty is a recent addition to the list of death duties. having been created in 1894 (57 and 58 Viet., e. 30). It is of a more general character than the earlier duties, being levied on all prop erty, real or personal, "which, on the death of any person after August 1, 181)4. or at a period ascertainable only by reference to such death. passes either immediately or after an interval, either certainly or eontingently," to This tax is in some cases additional to other death duties, and in other eases in lieu thereof. Taken together, these several duties constitute a most comprehensive system, which is being imi tated in many of its features in the United States. (See INHERITANCE TAX: SUCCESSION.) Consult: Hanson. Death Duties; Encyclopmlia of the Lairs of England (London, 1897), vol. i., 71: vol. iv., 120.