Dispositions with strings : Section 11 and Section 12 Estate and Gift Duties Act 1968

Abstract

This dissertation deals with sections 11 and 12 Estate and Gift Duties Act 1968 At the time of writing the Estate and Gift Duties Bill 1968 had passed the Committee stages. It was contemplated that it would become law without further amendment. Both provisions appear in the appendix,153. Broadly, the object of these sections is to prevent a person escaping estate duty by making dispositions before his death, while he retains benefits, out of those dispositions, during his life. In other words, they catch dispositions which are hedged with strings. Normally, property disposed of during the disponor's life does not form part of his dutiable estate. Section 10 of the Act, brings into dutiable estate any gift made, within three years of the disponor's death: the vulnerable period. Sections 11 and 12 effectively extend the charging provisions of section 10 to catch dispositions made at any time where the disponor retains certain benefits, in relation to the property in the disposition, during the vulnerable period. The sections catch dispositions inter vivos which are not outright, but in which the disponor enjoys some right over the property which has been gifted; or a power of revocation enabling him to recover that property; or where he takes back with the other hand part of that which he purports to give away. Halsbury L.C. in Grey v. Attorney-General [1900] A.C. 124, 126; emphasis added. put it this way:-