Transfers

of Stocks,
Shares, and
Securities.

Gifts inter
vivos.

SECRETARIAL PRACTICE
fa 1907, includes any ‘affidavit or declaration required by
aw.

Until 1907 it was necessary for the purpose of this exemption
that an affidavit or declaration required by law should be
made before a justice of the peace, but this is not now neces-
sary. The document must, however, be required by law,
and the exemption is, therefore, not applicable to a statutory
declaration required by a company to be made upon the
death of the holder of stocks or shares merely to establish
the identity of the deceased person with the person whose
name appears on the register of stocks and shares. A statu-
tory declaration relating to one transaction is not liable to
more than one duty by reason of its being a joint declaration
made as to the whole of it by one person, and as to part of it
by another person [Reversionary Interest Society v. Inland
Revenue, 22 T.L.R., 740].

One of the most important duties in the business of a
sompany is the keeping of the register of stocks, shares and
securities, and the entering of transfers of stocks and shares
and securities on that register.

The transfer of any description of registered shares, stocks
or securities in a company is required to be evidenced by an
instrument of transfer; no transfer can be registered unless
a proper instrument of transfer is delivered to the company
[s. 63 of the Companies Act, 1929], and the instrument, if the
transfer is on sale, is charged by the Stamp Act, 1891, amended
by the Finance Act, 1920, with duty according to the con-
sideration passing from the purchaser to the vendor. For
the rates of duty see Appendix A. A transfer operating
as a voluntary disposition #nfer vivos is chargeable with the
like stamp duty as a transfer on sale with the substitution of
the value of the shares or stock transferred for the considera-
tion, and applies equally to transfers of registered marketable
securities. The Act provides in sub-s. (2) of s. 74 that no
transfer operating as a voluntary disposition inter vivos shall
be deemed to be duly stamped unless the Commissioners of
Inland Revenue have expressed their opinion thereon, and
a secretary of a company can therefore refuse to accept for
registration any such transfer unless it bears an adjudication
stamp. The charge of ad valorem duty does not apply in seven
cases of transfer specified in the Inland Revenue Circular
(see Appendix A), to which should be added two other cases,
viz., the transfer of stock or shares by an executor or adminis-
trator to himself in his representative capacity and transfers
to a dealer on a Stock Exchange (as defined by s. 42 of the
Finance Act, 1020), or his nominee when the transaction to