MARTIN V. FEDERAL COMMISSIONER OF TAXATION

June ..co Brisbane

MARTIN.

Vv.

FEDERAL COMMISSIONER OF TAXATION.

REASONS FOR JUDGMENT

CORAM: WEBB J.

DELIVERED.. Sy/mey RP POS

SRETAL cow 2 ge. » (REESE carts)

These are appeals frow aesesements of incoxe tax in respeet of each of the income yeare ended 3oth June 1944, 1945 and 1966, The ease questions srice of each eppeal, oasely (1) whether the income in question wae derived from winning betz on race-horess; and, if ao, (2) whether it wae the reauit of sarrying on the vusiness of racing or betting er beth.

The appellant taxpayer had been successively & carpenter, wortke fereman and a cafe proprietor before the income years in questions; bus during the whole of the first inoome year and for nine wonthe of the second year he wae a hotel-keeper at Ipswich and then beeare a farmer near Prisbane and later near Toowoomba. He eeld hie cafe for absut £1300 in Harch 1943 and a few months later beught the hotel fer 71400, 'The balenee ef hie eapital was then sbout £1000,

Te each of te three income years he included in his returne certain eume ae being the proeseds of winning bets, not however ae assessable income, but as Capital veseipts. For the first two years the respondent Commissioner appeare to have accepted these returns as being correet, ae he assessed on the basie of the returns. But after learning of a conviction of the tax ayer for the offence of e¢lling wine for mere than the price fixed by law, he decided te amend the aseesements for the first two

~Be

yeare by treating the alleged proceeds from betting as aseessable inceme, In one year the taxpayer won £925

ae prize money for horse-racee; but thie prize money

does not appear to have been treated by the Commissioner

as actensable income. This may suggest that the Commissioner regarded these alleged betting proceeds as having really