TITHE PAYMENTS.

Taranaki Central Press, Volume IV, Issue 291, 21 November 1936, Page 7

TITHE PAYMENTS.

ABOLITION IN BRITAIN. \ New Act Receives Royal Assent. One hundred years ago the British Parliament abolished tithes payable or leviable in kind and substituted for this ancient liability on landowners an annual money payment known as tithe rent-charge. Now, in its turn, tithe rentcharge is abolished under the new Tithe Act which has received the Royal Assent. In exchange for the rights to be surrendered the titheowners receive Government scrip bearing interest at 3 per cent, and the capital cost of this expropriation of the titheowners is about £70,000.000. This guaranteed Government stock will be redeemable at par in 60 years. Ovei a similar period redemption annuities will be payable to the State by those who have hitherto been tithepayers, and these annuities will meet the interest and sinking fund charges on the £70.000.000 issue of stock. This means tha by 1996 —at the latest —the land of England and Wales will be finaLy freed of the charge originally imposed by tithes, and in the intervening years the progressive diminution of the term of the liability should materially benefit the capital value of the land affected. There is a possibility that land may be freed of the charge before 1996, for the Act provides that if at any time before the end of the 60 years redemption period the Treasury are satisfied that all commitments under the scheme have been met, Parliament, may extinguish the redemption annuities forthwith.

The ownership of about two-thirds — some £2,000,000—0f the total amount of tithe rent charge is vested in Queen Anne’s Bounty on behalf of incumbents of the Church of England, and it is estimated that the compensation payable to the bounty will be about £50,000,000. In addition to this there will be a separate payment to Queen Anne’s Bounty of £2,000,000, which will go toward creating the fund necessary to implement the undertalcing that the existing life interests of the 7000 incumbents concerned s' all be safeguarded. The total amount of capital required for this maintenance of life interests is £5,500,000. and £3,000,000 of this will have to be taken from the> capital amount of compensation payable to the bounty.

It is estimated by Queen Anne’s | Bounty that after all existing life inter- i ests have terminated there will be an ; ultimate loss to benefices alone of 1 £436,000 a year, which, capitalised on a 3 I per cent, basis, amounts to £14,500,000. j