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In my last column I wrote about how tax pops up when you are least expecting it. I had another similar experience last week that I also wanted to share with you, but I promise that this column is not going to turn into a chronicle of my adventures.
I had the pleasure of playing in a concert just before Easter in the magnificent surroundings of Southwell Minster. In a break during rehearsals I spotted a rather splendid painted wooden tablet on a wall giving details of amounts left to the parish in 1823 in the will of the former minster organist. It listed various amounts left in trust for educating and clothing children, providing bread and purchasing coals for the poor. Nothing remarkable about that, except that the last paragraph reads ‘NB the above sums of £400, £200 and £50 are reduced by the legacy duty to £360, £180 and £45’.
Legacy duty was chargeable at 10% on amounts left to non-family members. There were no special rules for legacies left for charitable purposes, so here 10% of the organists’ generosity went straight to the exchequer. Legacy duty was not abolished until 1949, although it was only in FA 1975 that any remaining unpaid liabilities were extinguished.
I don’t know whether the person was making a particular point: perhaps there was resentment that the whole of the fund didn’t go to good causes. Certainly, I’ve never seen another similar sign, although perhaps readers have spotted others elsewhere. I suppose that if somebody were to put up a similar board now it would have to reference IHTA 1984, s 23 or even Sch 1A. Somehow it wouldn’t quite have the same resonance.
