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Executors, &c. to deliver to the commissioners an account of the personal estate, &c. of the deceased, and all payments made thereout, and commissioners to assess duty thereon.
Proceedings may be instituted for the recovery of outstanding duties payable on legacies or annuities.
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128. Every executor and administrator or other person or persons, having or taking the burthen or execution of the will or testamentary instrument or the administration of the personal estate of any person deceased, shall, before such executor, administrator, or other person shall retain for their own use or for the benefit of any other person or persons, or shall transfer, pay, deliver, satisfy, or otherwise discharge the residue of the personal estate, and the residue of monies arising from the sale or mortgage of any real estate, directed by any testamentary instrument to be sold or mortgaged, or any certain proportional part of such residue, to the person or persons entitled thereto, deliver to the commissioners of stamp duties or their officers a full and just account of the personal estate of the deceased and of the monies arising from the sale or mortgage of real estate, or the value of the real estate, if not sold, when the same is directed by the will or other testamentary instrument of the deceased to be absolutely sold or mortgaged, and of all lawful payments made out of such personal estate, and the monies arising from the sale or mortgage of such real estate, on the forms printed for such accounts by order of the said commissioners of stamp duties, when and as far as such forms can be made applicable to the account to be delivered, and when they will not so apply, the account may be rendered in such form as shall sufficiently answer the purposes desired; and the said commissioners or their officers shall examine such account, and if it shall appear to them to be a just and proper account, they shall assess the duty thereon, but if the commissioners shall not be satisfied with the account delivered, it shall be lawful for them to require an account to be rendered on oath or affirmation, which oath or affirmation shall be according to the form prescribed in the schedule hereunto annexed, and shall be administered by a justice of the peace, or master or masters extraordinary in Chancery; and if it shall appear by the books of the said commissioners that there are any outstanding duties due and payable on legacies or annuities, it shall be lawful for the said commissioners to require payment of such duties within a specified time; and that if after such requisition the same shall not be paid, or cause shewn to the satisfaction of the commissioners within the time specified why the same should not be paid, it shall be lawful for the said commissioners to institute proceedings in his Majesty's Court of Exchequer against the executors or administrators or person or persons taking the burthen of the execution of the will or administration of the personal estate of the deceased or acting as trustee or trustees, and also against the legatee to whom the legacy or annuity upon which such duty shall appear to be unpaid shall have been given, if the circumstances of the case require it, for the payment of the duty; and if after such proceedings shall be instituted it shall be shewn that by reason of the death of the legatee or annuitant in the lifetime of the deceased, or of the legacy not being of the value of twenty pounds, or from any other cause, no duty is payable, it shall be lawful for the court in which such suit shall be instituted to order all costs, charges, and expences attending such proceedings to be paid by the person or persons of whom the said commissioners shall have required payment of the duty, by way of penalty for not having, after such requisition, shewn to the satisfaction of the commissioners that no duty was payable on such legacy or annuity.
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