Finance Act 1973

PART IV Estate Duty

45 Valuation of certain investments for purposes of estate duty

(1) The provisions of this section shall have effect for determining the principal value, for the purposes of estate duty, of any qualifying investments which—

(a) constitute property passing on the death of a person dying after 6th March 1973 ; and

(b) fall to be valued as at the date of that death for the purposes of estate duty ; and

(c) are sold by the appropriate person within the period of twelve months immediately following the date of that death.

(2) On a claim being made in that behalf by the appropriate person there shall be determined for the purposes of this section the amount (if any) by which—

(a) the aggregate of the values which, apart from this section and apart from any reduction under section 35 of the [1968 c. 44.] Finance Act 1968, would be the principal values for the purposes of estate duty of all the qualifying investments falling within paragraphs (a) and (b) of subsection (1) above which are sold by him as mentioned in paragraph (c) of that subsection

exceeds

(b) the aggregate of the values of those investments at the time they were so sold, taking the value of any particular investments for this purpose as the price for which they were so sold or, if it is greater, the best consideration which could reasonably have been obtained for them at the time of the sale ;

and in this section the amount of that excess is referred to, in relation to those investments, as " the loss on sale ".

(3) Subject to the following provisions of this section, in determining the estate duty chargeable on the death in question, the principal value of the investments to which the claim relates shall be treated as reduced by an amount equal to the loss on sale.

(4) Subject to subsection (5) below, if a claim is made under this section and, at any time during the period beginning on the date of the death in question and ending two months after the date of the last sale falling within subsection (1)(c) above of any qualifying investments to which the claim relates, the person making the claim purchases any qualifying investments in the same capacity as that in which he makes the claim, the loss on sale of the investments to which the claim relates shall be treated for the purposes of subsection (3) above as reduced by the proportion which the aggregate of the purchase prices of all the qualifying investments so purchased bears to the aggregate of the values referred to in subsection (2)(b) above (or, if the aggregate of those purchase prices equals or exceeds the aggregate of those values, the loss on sale shall be extinguished).

(5) If a claim is made under this section by any person in a capacity other than that of an executor or trustee—

(a) subsection (4) above shall have effect in his case as if for the words " in the same capacity as that in which he makes the claim " there were substituted the words " otherwise than in the capacity of an executor or trustee " , and

(b) no account shall be taken under that subsection of any qualifying investments purchased by him unless they are of the same description as one of the qualifying investments to which the claim relates.

(6) In this section—

• " the appropriate person ", in relation to any qualifying investments falling within paragraphs (a) and (b) of subsection (1) above, means the person accountable for estate duty in respect of those investments or, if there is more than one such person and one of them is in fact accounting for that duty, that person;

• " qualifying investments " means shares or securities which at the date of the death in question are quoted on a recognised stock exchange and holdings in a unit trust which at that date is an authorised unit trust, as defined in section 358 of the Taxes Act; and

• " recognised stock exchange " has the same meaning as in the Corporation Tax Acts;

and any reference to the investments to which a claim relates is a reference to all the qualifying investments which, on the making of the claim, are taken into account under subsection (2) above in determining the loss on sale.

(7) Schedule 18 to this Act shall have effect for supplementing this section and any expression to which a meaning is assigned by subsection (2) or subsection (6) above has the same meaning in that Schedule as in this section.

(8) For the purposes of subsection (5) above and Schedule 18 to this Act, two investments, not being investments in an authorised unit trust, shall not be treated as of the same description if they are separately quoted on a recognised stock exchange, and an investment in one authorised unit trust shall not be treated as of the same description as an investment in another authorised unit trust.

46 Acceptance in satisfaction of estate duty of certain objects and collections

Without prejudice to their powers under section 30 of the [1953 c. 34.] Finance Act 1953 (acceptance of objects associated with certain buildings) and section 34(1) of the [1956 c. 54.] Finance Act 1956 (acceptance of certain works of art) the power of the Commissioners of Inland Revenue to accept property other than land in satisfaction of estate duty or settlement estate duty shall include power to accept—

(a) any picture, print, book, manuscript, scientific object or other thing which the Treasury are satisfied is pre-eminent for its national, scientific or historic interest, and

(b) any collection or group of pictures, prints, books, manuscripts, works of art, scientific objects or other things if the Treasury are satisfied that the collection or group, taken as a whole, is pre-eminent for its national, scientific, historic or artistic interest,

and subsections (2) and (3) of the said section 30 (which regulate matters arising out of acceptances under that section) shall apply in the same way to acceptances under this section.