SANCTIONS AND CURRENT ISSUES IN THE STAMP DUTIES ACT

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Date
2003
Authors
SANNI, A.O
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
The Faculty of Law, Rivers State University of Science & Technology, Nkpolu-Oroworukwo, Port Harcourt, Nigeria.
Abstract
Generally, stamp duty is a tax raised by requiring stamps sold by the government to be affixed to designated documents, thus forming part of the perpetual revenue. The tax is calculated based on the value of the property that forms the basis of the instrument. Failure to stamp an instrument unlike failure to pay an income tax is not an offence leading one to the jurisprudential question whether or not stamp duty is a tax. Indeed, if there is no compulsion to stamp an instrument, it is logical to ask why anyone should waste time and resources on stamping. The answer to this is not farfetched. While it may not be an offence not to stamp an instrument, the law confers certain privileges on stamped instruments, which are denied unstamped instruments. One may therefore be tempted into surmising that the relevance of sanctions for non-stamping is basically to deny anyone who has not paid the 'price' for the privileges conferred by the Act from tendering an instrument in a court or arbitral proceeding. The thrust of this paper is to reveal the dangers in having such a narrow perception of a wider issue.
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Keywords
SANCTIONS AND CURRENT ISSUES IN THE STAMP DUTIES ACT
Citation
Sanni, A.O (2003) SANCTIONS AND CURRENT ISSUES IN THE STAMP DUTIES ACT 1 169 The Faculty of Law, Rivers State University of Science & Technology, Nkpolu-Oroworukwo, Port Harcourt, Nigeria.