40 TRANSACTIONS OF ROYAL SCOTTISH ARBORICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



forming new, i.e. additional plantations, would not be allowed 

 as a deduction, because these plantations would not be liable 

 to duty during the lifetime of the planter. The account should 

 be balanced each year, and the duty should then be paid on any 

 surplus at the rate fixed for the deceased's other estate. In the 

 case of a deficit, this deficit would be carried forward to next 

 year, and so on until there is a surplus on which duty would 

 then be paid. This procedure would continue until the estate, 

 on the death of some other person, again became liable in duty. 



While there is no doubt that the new clause removes 

 grievances from which numbers of estates might in course of 

 time suffer severely, there is still room for further concessions. 

 The recommendation of the Departmental Committee on 

 Forestry in Scotland, "that there should be an amendment 

 of the law affecting the taxation of woodlands to estate and 

 succession duties whereby a private estate, approved for the 

 purpose by the State, would be reckoned as a separate estate 

 and possibly charged at a lower rate," might be given effect 

 to at an early date. Meantime, with the exception of the rate of 

 duty, the woods are now, as regards death duties, treated as 

 a separate estate, but the rate of duty still payable is determined 

 by the value of the deceased's other estate, and not by the 

 value of the woods which, in most cases, is less than the value 

 of the other estate. It may also be reasonably claimed that 

 when State afforestation begins, these death duties on woods 

 should be abolished so as to put the private owner of woods 

 and the State on the same footing, and allow them to compete 

 on equal terms. 



The concessions that have been made are clearly intended 

 to preserve the existing woods on private estates, and to dis- 

 courage the practice of cutting down immature timber to meet 

 death duties or other expenses. It is to be hoped that they 

 will also have the further effect of inducing proprietors of 

 woodlands not only to continue their operations as formerly, 

 but to extend them and consequently to add to their woodland 

 areas. Such additional plantations would of course escape 

 duty during the lifetime of the planter, and after that would 

 only pay duty when converted into cash in ordinary course of 

 management after deducting " necessary outgoings." 



