ESTATE DUTY.

NUMBERS AND CAPITAL VALUES OF ESTATES.

13. With the exception of Tables 21 and 22, showing a classification by reference to Age-groups for England only, the statistics which follow relate to Great Britain. It must be borne in mind, however, that the establishment, as independent taxing jurisdictions, of Northern Ireland from the 22nd November, 1921, and of the Irish Free State from the 1st April, 1923, has slightly affected the comparability of statistics for Great Britain before and after those dates.

14. In addition to the estates which paid duty, certain cases came before the Department which were exempt, either because the estate fell below the £100 limit of liability to the duty or because it was insolvent. Details of these estates are given on page 38. In the great majority of exempt cases, however, no documents are presented to the Department, and no information as to the capital in such estates is available.

TABLE 13.-Numbers of Estates liable to Estate Duty, 1926–27.

TABLE 14.-Classification of the Total Number of Estates according to the Sex, Personal Status, and Testacy or Intestacy of the Deceased, and other details.

Grand Total

44,235 18,875 2,057 44,347 3,132 32,435 15,033 1,279 24,851 1,890

Note I.-The above figures do not include estates not exceeding 1001. net value, which are exempt by law, nor Insolvent Estates. The details of both these classes of estates are given in Table 25.

Note II.-It may happen that the net capital in certain of the classes is less than the amount which would be produced by multiplying the minimum of the class by the number of estates in it, as shown in the appropriate column of Table 13, and in some cases more than would be produced by multiplying the maximum of the class by the number of estates in it. This is mainly due to the system of payment by instalments, under which a portion only of an estate will be classified, the balance being dealt with in subsequent years, as the duty is paid. Moreover, property is occasionally charged to duty without an affidavit for probate or administration being presented, so that property is included in Table 15, which is not represented by an estate in Table 13; and an estate in Table 13 is sometimes chargeable to duty in portions at different rates, so that an estate in one class of Table 13 may be represented by property in two or more classes of Table 15.