The Pamphlet Collection of Sir Robert Stout: Volume 48

Agents and Trustees. Sections 19, 20, and 89

Agents and Trustees. Sections 19, 20, and 89,

Clauses 19 and 20 deal with agents and trustees. The first part of 19 says:—"Every agent for any person permanently or temporarily absent from the colony, and every trustee, shall be assessed separately in respect of every property or trust which he represents, and shall be chargeable with the tax payable in respect thereof in the same manner as if such property were his own."

The assessment should, in order to prevent confusion, be in the name of the owner, and not in that of the trustee or agent, whose address, however, should be carefully stated. Each trustee or joint agent is answerable for doing everything required by the Act for the assessment of the property, which he represents, and for payment of the tax in respect thereof, and he is subject to penalties in the same manner as if acting on his own behalf. He is authorised to recover the amount of tax paid from his principal or estate, as the case may be, or to retain it out of money held by him in his representative character. Sub-section 4 of the clause says:—"But such agent or trustee shall not be personally liable for any tax imposed upon him under this section to any further or greater extent than the value of the property remaining in his hands or of which he shall have the controlling power after receiving notice of such assessment."

This affords ample protection to an agent or trustee, and saves him from the chance of having to find money out of his own funds to pay the tax on property in which he has no direct interest.

Clause 89, which deals with trusts of persons under legal disability, and of persons who have died, does not contain a proviso to this effect.