OUR review of the extraordinary facts relating to what has been called with grim humour the "National" income, prepares us for an examination of the estates of rich and poor.
Legal distribution of the property of deceased persons can only be made upon payment of certain taxes, commonly called death duties, and legally known as the Estate, Legacy and Succession duties. The nature and extent of these duties I shall discuss in a later chapter. At this point I am only concerned with the facts which are brought to light in the collection of the chief death duty, the Estate duty, as since varied, of the great 1894 Budget[14] of the late Sir William Harcourt.
The principle of graduation was very properly applied to this duty, and accordingly we obtain, through the reports of the Inland Revenue Commissioners, an exceedingly valuable record, not only of the total value of the property which is "left"—it is a suggestive term—by the deceased, but of the classification of that property in large and small estates.[15]
The Estate Duty is payable upon all estates which exceed £100 net (net, that is, after the discharge of all debts due by the deceased) and the Inland Revenue authorities undoubtedly pass under review the greater part of the property which is thus legally taxable. There must be a certain leakage, of course, for such heritages as household furniture, cash in money or notes, bearer bonds, and so forth, are sometimes divided up amongst the relatives of a departed property owner without account to the State, and it is difficult properly to assess unquoted securities, goodwills, trade stocks, furniture, etc. Moreover, large sums pass inter vivos. How much property thus escapes official observation we do not know, but it is probably a considerable amount.