COLLIE POWER COMPANY V. THE FEDERAL COMMISSIONER OF TAXATION

COLLIE POWER COMPANY

THE FEDERAL COMMISSIONER OF TAXATION

DIXON Os Te

WEBB Jy

COLLIE POWER COMPANY

ve

THE FEDERAL COMMESSTONER OP TAXATION,

JUDGMENT (ORAL DIXON Co Te WEBB Je

This is an appeal from a decision of Taylor J.

The appellant is a taxpayer who appealed from an assessment which was based on see. 59 of the Income Tax and Social Services Contribu- tion Assessment Act 1936-51. While this appeal was standing in the list of cases for hearing in the original jurisdiction in Perth the decision was delivered by the Full Court of this Court in Henty House Pty. Ltd. v. The Federal Commissioner of Taxation. The decision

was given on 9th September 1953.

In the view of the appellent's counsel that decision made it impossible for him to succeed if it was followed,

A recent decision of the Pull Court would of course be followed without question both by the Judge sitting in the original juris- diction and by the Full Court itself. But apparently the appellant wished to attack the decision. The appeal was therefore brought on for hearing before Mr. Justice Taylor, who as a matter of course dismissed it, and from his decision an appeal was immediately brought to the Full Court.

It is not contended that the Full Court can do otherwise than follow the decision in Henty House Pty. Ltd, v. The Federal Commissioner of Taxation,and that means that we must dismiss the appeal. Had it been intended to invite the Full Court to reconsider that decision or to do anything but act in accordance with the rules which govern the authority of decided cases as precedents, the Pull Court would have been constituted of a greater number of judges. We expedited the appeal and heard it at once, not "because we thought that the decision in the ease of Henty House

2.

Pty. Ltd. was open to question or ought to be reviewed here or elsewhere, but simply because it will be another year before this Court sits in Perth and we thought that, in the interests of time, we should hear the appeal at once.