Finance Act, 1931

Exemption from death duties of objects of national, etc., interest.

28.—(1) Where there pass on the death of a person dying on or after the date of the passing of this Act any objects to which this section applies, the value of those objects shall not be taken into account for the purpose of estimating the principal value of the estate passing on the death or the rate at which estate duty is chargeable thereon, and those objects shall, while enjoyed in kind, be exempt from death duties.

(2) In the event of the sale of any objects to which this section applies, death duties shall, subject to the provisions of this section, become chargeable on the proceeds of sale in respect of the last death on which the objects passed and, as respects estate duty, at the rate appropriate to the principal value of the estate passing on that death upon which estate duty is leviable, and with which the objects would have been aggregated if they had not been objects to which this section applies, and the person by whom or for whose benefit the objects were sold shall be accountable for the duties and shall deliver an account for the purposes thereof within one month after the sale, and interest on the said duties shall be payable from the date of the sale.

(3) In the event of a sale of any objects to which this section applies, death duties shall not become chargeable if the sale is to the National Gallery of Ireland, the National Museum of Science and Art, or any other similar national institution, any university, county council or municipal corporation in Saorstát Eireann, or the Friends of the National Collections of Ireland.

(4) This section applies to the following objects, that is to say, such pictures, prints, books, manuscripts, works of art, scientific collections or other things not yielding income as on a claim being made to the Minister for Finance under this section, appear to him to be of national, scientific, historic or artistic interest.

(5) Nothing in this section shall affect the powers conferred on the Minister for Finance by sub-section (2) of section 15 of the Finance Act, 1894 .