Concerning the Proper Stamps upon Assignments of Policies of Insurance

Extract

The new Stamp Act does not, as perhaps might have been expected, set at rest the much disputed question, whether the assignment of a chose in action requires an ad valorem stamp. The clauses in the schedule to the new act, upon which the question will depend, and which immediately follow the words “conveyance and mortgage,” are word for word the same as those in the schedule to the 55 Geo. III., C. 184, and hence it will remain abstractedly in the same position as before. A strong opinion has been expressed that in every case of such an assignment, whether by way of mortgage or upon a sale, the ad valorem stamp is necessary, and assuming that the points depend upon the construction of the word property in the statute, it is argued that “whatever is dealt with as property, and is the subject of sale or mortgage, is property within the meaning of the act, and that the instrument by which the transfer is effected is chargeable with the ad valorem duty, unless expressly exempted.”—(Tilsley, Stamp Laws, 248).