COLLIE POWER COMPANY V. THE FEDERAL COMMISSIONER OF TAXATION
High Court of Australia
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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.
There is nothing for us to de but dismiss the
appeal following the decision in Henty House Pty. Ltd. v. The Federal
Commissioner of Taxation. It is eonceded that the present case is
indistinguishable from it. The appeal will therefore be dismissed
with costse :
ORDER
Appeal dismissed with costs.