STRONGLY CENSURED

Wairarapa Times-Age, 18 November 1942, Page 3

STRONGLY CENSURED

BY MR JUSTICE BLAIR COMMISSIONER OF STAMP DUTIES. . CLAIM MADE ON TRUSTEES DENOUNCED. (By Telegraph—Press Association.) WELLINGTON, This Day. The Commissioner of Stamp Duties was censured by Mr Justice Blair in a reserved judgment delivered yesterday for the attitude’ he had adopted in two Hawke's Bay cases staled Py him under the Death Duties Act. “The effect of the attitude he takes in this matter,” his Honour stated, "is that he entirely disregards any moral or ethical considerations.” His Honour emphasised that, as with his Majesty’s Law Courts, the administration of State departments must be fair, just, impartial, and fearless, and he described as fantastic, if not to the lawyer; then at least to the layman, the commissioner’s claims in the proceedings. Appellants in the two cases were Charles Athol Williams, farmer, Pukehou, and George Falkland Gardiner, accountant, Napier, as administrators of the estate of the late Helena Keith, Pukehou, ■ spinster, and Messrs Wil liams and Gardiner, as appellants m their respective personal capacities. The cases concerned the will of Miss Keith, in which she left her estate to appellants and expressed the hope ‘that they will carry out any wishes expressed by me in writing that may be found with this will or with my papers at the time of my death.” A deed of arrangement which incorporated the effect of a memorandum signed by the testatrix about four years after the making of the will, and in which she expressed a wish that certain persons should be assisted “as my executors may think fit was subsequently made between Mis Helena Howes, Sydney, the sole next-of-kin, and appellants’ solicitors. 1 his deed provided, among other things, that the devise and bequest to appellants should be deemed a trust for the persons detailed in the memorandum as if those persons and their respective shares had been so set out in the will ltS “Any honest man placed in the position of Messrs Williams and Gardiner would unquestionably do what the; have done,” stated his Honour m.his judgment, “and I do not suppose they claim any credit for so doing, because they are acting only in strict consonance with the ordinary honest man s natural ideas of honesty. Indeed, 1 venture to say that had to adopt the unthinkable course of pocketing the money with which Miss Keith entrusted them tney would not have been able to hold up their heads among their fellow men. . “The fact that the Commissioner < of Death Duties does not appear io hold with these sound but, unfortunately perhaps, old fashioned views, is to be regretted, if not for his own sake, then at least for the honour of a great State department • t “It looks to me as if it appeals v the Commissioner of Stamp Duties to be of more importance that he becomes enabled to claim taxes upon what is really one transaction in four and possibly five separate and distinct ways than it is to see an honest trustee being honest to his trust. I cannot understand how the commissioner can feel satisfied in giving a ruling which in effect involves the accepting of funds from the tainted pocket of a dishonest trustee. In my view the commissioner s contention necessarily postulates that the trustees should be dishonest to their trust. In effect the commissioner demands that they must at least constructively missappropriate a dead woman’s money, and he also claims that it is the duty of the Court to say he is justified in so doing. ... “The commissioner is just seeking to take advantage of a technicality to get more tax than Miss Keith would have been called upon to pay had she given away the whole of her estate in her lifetime or «given it away direct by her will to the persons she wished to benefit. “In the ultimate result the dispositions made of Miss Keith s estate by the persons appointed to act for her were the dispositions made by her will. The dispositions made in the deed are the dispositions Miss Keith expected them, in fulfilment of her wishes, to make on her behalf. It is plain to me that the commissioner cannot have a shred of moral justification for the claim he makes.

His Honour allowed the appeals against the Commissioner's decision and granted the appellants costs and disbursements.