Risks
Insured
Without
Issue of
Policy.

Receipts.

372

0Q.B., 630; and Mortgage Insurance Corporation, Limited, v
Inland Revenue, 21 Q.B.D. 352]. The Inland Revenue
authorities have, however, claimed that a guarantee under
seal must be stamped as a bond with ad valorem duty on the
amount guaranteed. It is therefore suggested that with a
view to preventing such a claim being made such guarantees
should instead of being given under seal be executed by some
officer on behalf of the company. To enable this course to be
adopted it is essential that a resolution should be passed
expressly authorising the officer in question to execute the
document.

The definition of a policy of insurance against accident
extends to a notice or advertisement in a newspaper or other
publication which purports to insure the payment of money
to the holder thereof in circumstances in which a policy, if
issued, would be a policy chargeable with the fixed duty of
1d., and it is provided by s. 116 of the Act of 1891 as extended
by s. 13 of the Finance Act, 1896, and s. 8 of the Finance Act,
1907, that the penny duty payable on a policy for the like
purpose may be compounded for under an agreement entered
into with the Commissioners of Inland Revenue for the
delivery to them of quarterly accounts of all sums received
by way of premium and the payment of a duty equal to 5
per cent. on the aggregate amount of these sums.

This composition corresponds with a composition allowed
since 1849 by the private Acts of the Railway Passengers’
Assurance Company and the Ocean Accident and Guarantee
Corporation, Ltd., in respect of risks insured without the issue
of a formal policy.

A receipt is defined by s. 101 of the Act of 1891 as including
‘any note, memorandum, or writing whereby any money
amounting to £2 or upwards or any bill of exchange or pro-
missory note for money amounting to fz or upwards is
acknowledged or expressed to have been received or deposited
or paid or whereby any debt or demand or any part of a
debt or demand of the amount of £2 or upwards is acknow-
ledged to have been settled, satisfied, or discharged, or
which signifies or imports any such acknowledgment, and
whether the same is or is not signed with the name of any
person.’ The section provides that the duty may be denoted
by an adhesive stamp ‘which is to be cancelled by the person
by whom the receipt is given before he delivers it out of his
hands’; and s. 103 provides that ‘if any person (I) gives a
receipt liable to duty and not duly stamped, or (2) in any case
where a receipt would be liable to duty refuses to give a
receipt duly stamped, or (3) upon a payment to the amount of

SECRETARIAL PRACTICE