STAMP DUTY

Hokitika Guardian, 1 May 1929, Page 6

STAMP DUTY

MODE OF PAYAIENT

[By Telegraph, Per Press Association.]

PALAIERSTON X., April 30

An important ruling has been given by the Stamp Duties Department on the question of the mode of payment of stamp duty on agreements and other documents requiring to be stamped arising out of a ease in the local .Magistrate’s Court, in which a hirepurchase agreement had been stamped to the amount of one shilling and threepence by the use of a franking 'machine.

Counsel contended that the use of such machines was illegal.

The question was accordingly submitted by the Court to the Stamp Duties Department at Wellington, from, whom the following reply was received :—“The impressing, by the use of a recording machine on the abovedescribed instrument of stamp values to the amount of Is 3d, does not make a document a duly stamped instrument.. The provision made in Section 17 of the Post and Telegraph Act for the use of recording machines for the purpose of prepayment ol postage* and charges on telegrams, in addition to payment of stamp duty upon receipts. There is no other purpose for which a recording machine can be used. The amount of Is 3d so impressed on the document lias been treated as money paid to the Post Office for services: whereas, had the document been properly stamped, the amount of duty would have, been paid into the Public Account as part of the public revenue derived from taxation.”