HC Deb 08 December 1919 vol 122 c1093

In the event of the death of any person entitled as a dependant to money paid into a County Court under the Workmen's Compensation Act, 1906, then, if no direction has been given as to the disposition thereof for the benefit of other dependants in the event of the death of the person entitled thereto. the Court may, without probate or letters of administration, distribute the sum amongst such persons as appear to the Court, upon such evidence as the Court may deem satisfactory, to be entitled by law to receive the same, or if the dependant so dying is illegitimate and dies intestate, amongst the persons who in the opinion of the Court would have been entitled thereto if the dependant had been legitimate; and, if there are no such persons, the Court shall deal with the sum as the Treasury may direct.

Sir G. HEWART

I beg to move, at the end of the Clause, to insert the words Provided that where the principal value of the estate of the dependant so dying exceeds one hundred pounds, any sum paid under this Section without probate or letters of administration shall be liable to Estate Duty as part of the amount on which that duty is charged, and the County Court shall, before making any, such payment, require a statutory declaration by the claimant, or by one of the claimants, that the principal value of the estate, including the sum in question, does not, after deduction of debts and funeral expenses, exceed the value of one hundred pounds, or the production of a letter or certificate from the Commissioners of Inland Revenue stating either that all duties payable in respect of the sum in question have been paid, or that no duty thereon is payable. May I say, with regard to this proviso, that in the Bill as it comes from another place it appears underlined and within square brackets for the reason that it has to do with a question of taxation. It is not, of course, a question of new taxation; it is merely to preserve the existing law. The proviso makes, as I understand, no alteration in the law; it merely provides for the continuance of the law as it now stands.

Amendment agreed to.

Clause, as amended, ordered to stand part of the Bill.