DEATH DUTIES PAID: 1894-5 TO 1908-9
| Fiscal Year. | Total Death Duties. | Total Estates. | Average Aggregate Rate of Duty per cent. |
| £ | £ | ||
| 1894-5 | 10,894,385 | 194,465,000 | 5.61 |
| 1895-6 | 14,088,608 | 249,942,000 | 5.63 |
| 1896-7 | 13,878,274 | 245,883,000 | 5.64 |
| 1897-8 | 15,449,190 | 270,326,000 | 5.71 |
| 1898-9 | 15,732,578 | 271,901,000 | 5.78 |
| 1899-1900 | 18,409,293 | 312,819,000 | 5.88 |
| 1900-1 | 16,721,129 | 284,884,000 | 5.87 |
| 1901-2 | 18,513,714 | 295,829,000 | 6.26 |
| 1902-3 | 17,913,177 | 296,382,000 | 6.04 |
| 1903-4 | 17,326,137 | 291,161,000 | 5.95 |
| 1904-5 | 17,258,431 | 284,309,000 | 6.07 |
| 1905-6 | 17,344,925 | 296,233,000 | 5.85 |
| 1906-7 | 18,958,763 | 319,579,000 | 5.93 |
| 1907-8 | 19,108,256 | 304,093,000 | 6.28 |
| 1908-9 | 18,310,280 | 294,662,000 | 6.21 |
These figures were prepared by Somerset House and given to the House of Commons in September 1909 in answer to a question of Mr Thomas Gibson Bowles.
In 1908-9, in spite of the increase of rates in 1907, the Death Duties took but £18,300,000 or a little over 6 per cent. of property worth £294,600,000.
But this is a partial statement of the facts. There is little doubt that the estates passing yearly are worth nearer £400,000,000 than the £300,000,000 which is officially reviewed and taxed. So that the total burden of the Death Duties in 1908-9 was really about 4½ per cent.
There has been some talk in this connexion of diminishing and wasting the national capital. The national capital was conservatively estimated in Chapter 5 as about £13,000,000,000. The Death Duties are now taking about £20,000,000 a year. £20,000,000 is contained just 650 times in £13,000,000,000, so that, even if the £20,000,000 a year were wasted, the national capital would waste away in six and a half centuries. But the £20,000,000 a year is not lost: it is transferred from private pockets to the State and used a hundredfold for the better advantage of the nation than if it were not so transferred. One may go further and say that if it were not taken and used for the furtherance of reform, the national capital would cease to make increase. Expenditure upon Education alone needs to be doubled if British work is to fructify in the near future.
Some attention was given on page 76 to the question of the avoidance of Death Duties by gifts inter vivos. The Finance Act of 1909 increased to three years the period before death during which gifts passing inter vivos should be liable to Death Duties. It will be of interest to see whether this checks the avoidance of Death Duties which has given us such remarkable statistics as those recorded on page 76-77.
It is not necessary to dwell at length in this chapter upon considerations connected with the dangers to Society involved in the monopolization of wealth by a few people, for they were treated at some length in earlier pages. I may usefully direct attention, however, to a speech made by the President of the United States of America, Mr Taft, in September 1909, in which he said:
"Let the State pass inheritance laws which shall require the division of great fortunes among the children of descendants, and shall not permit the multi-millionaire to leave his fortune in a mass. Make more drastic the rule against perpetuities which obtain at common law, and then impose a heavy graduated inheritance tax enabling the State to share largely in the proceeds of such large accumulations of wealth which would hardly have been brought about save under its protection and aid. Thus gradually and effectively the concentration of wealth in one or few hands will be neutralized, and the danger to the Republic obviated."
These are the words, not of a Socialist, but of the elected of the Conservatives of the United States. They may fittingly end our consideration of the revised Death Duties.