I am not going to suggest that the Dáil should not accept this Resolution because it is part of a bargain that super-tax has been reduced and estate duties increased. Although I look upon it with some anxiety and apprehension—it is, as Deputy Thrift said, "a rub of the green"—I do not want to suggest anything unfair. I would ask the Minister to do what he can to ease the methods of payment of estate duties because this is a considerable burden on estates. Take an estate, for instance, of £100,000. That means an income of £5,000 a year, or less, because houses. gardens, demesne lands, and other amenities, which do not return an income in proportion to their capital value, are included in the value of the estate. That estate will have to pay £20,000 estate duties—that is to say, more than four years' income of the estate. Before the war it was possible to save money in anticipation of these payments, but it is not possible now. The imaginary individual who is getting £5,000 a year is paying £2,000 at least in direct taxes, income tax, and super-tax, and he is also paying high indirect taxes and wages. I am assuming the case of a demesne here. The wages which have to be paid for upkeep and maintenance have increased very largely. Nearly half the income goes in taxes. The wages of servants, gardeners, stablemen and others have increased very much, and a man is not in a position to save, so that when he dies and when his executors come to deal with the estate duties they are faced with claims to the amount of four years' income from the property.
I am not saying the claim should not be paid, but I say it ought to be paid on as easy terms as the Minister for Finance can permit. There are two ways out of that. One is that wherever there is superfluous land, the Land Commission should take it over and its value should be graduated Again, most of the estates to which I am referring are estates which are the subject of trust. The owner is not the absolute owner, but a tenant for life, and I would suggest to the Minister the desirability of introducing some legislation to enable the tenant for life, or the trustees of a tenant for life, to dispose of portions of the estate in order to pay estate duties, because, if the tenant for life is faced with the position that he has got to pay out of a dwindling income, which has far more demands on it now than ever, and the charges upon it are far higher now than in the past, he is practically reduced to going to the moneylender. The third suggestion that I will make will probably be the least acceptable. As there are already arrangements by which estate duties can be paid by instalments, I suggest that the Minister should see if it is not possible to extend the period of these instalments. I do see that there are obvious objections. If I were the Minister for Finance, I should probably say that it was never done before, and could not be done now; but if the Minister would look into the question of the capacity to pay and the amount demanded of the person who has to pay, I think he will see that there is some case for an extension of the period of repayment. I am not asking for the terms of the annuities under the Land Act, or anything like that. I think it is spread over five years at present.
