AUSTIN DISTRIBUTORS PTY. LTD. V. COMMISSIONER OF TAXATION OF THE COMMONWEALTH OF AUSTRALIA

REASONS FOR JUDGMENT

COURT : High Court of Australia Principal Registry

PARTIES : AUSTIN DISTRIBUTORS PTY. LTD.

ve

COMMISSIONER OF TAXATION OF THE COMMONWEALTH OF AUSTRALIA

NATURE OF

PROCEEDING : Appeal from Taxation Board of PROCBEDINGS Review No. 2.

Question whether company by disclosing sale of "Crown Licence" made a full and true disclosure within 8.170 cf Income Tax and Social Services Contribution Assessment ict.

CORAM 3: MENZIES J.

ORDER OF COURT : Appeal dismissed with costs

DLE : 8th December 1964.

AUSTIN DISTRIBUTORS PROPRIETARY LIMITED

ve

THE COMMISSIONER OF TAXATION OF THE COMMONWEALTH OF AUSTRALIA

ORDER

Appeal dismissed with costs.

AUSTIN DISTRIBUTORS PROPRIETARY LIMITED

Ve

THE COMMISSIONER OF TAXATION OF THE COMMONWEALTH OF AUSTRALIA

JUDGMENT MENZIES J.

AUSTIN DISTRIBUTORS PROPRIETARY LIMITED

ve

THE COMMISSIONER OF TAXATION OF THE COMMONWEALTH OF AUSTRALIA

The appellant taxpayer received during the year ended 30th June 1955 what now appears as a net sum of £74,917 which, at the hearing, it was conceded was assessable income in that it was a premium upon the assignment of a lease made to Radio Corporation Pty. Ltd. on 31st October 1954. The sum of £74,917 was not the actual amount received in connection with the assignment of the lease (see ss. 83 and 84); it was rather a sum calculated to the nearest pound by deducting from the price for which the lease was sold (i.e. £87,500) an amount of £12,582.17.4 made up by adding that portion of the £87,500 which the taxpayer attributed to fixtures and fittings, £1,632.13.6, to £10,950.3.10 - described merely as "Cost" - and which was presumably either the cost of the lease or the amount spent upon improving the land, or partly one and partly the other. The taxpayer's return for the year of income did not show any premium as an item of assessable income and the original assessment, based as it was upon the return, did not bring the sum of £74,917 to tax. More than three years after the date upon which the original assessment became due and payable, the Commissioner issued an amended assessment seeking to bring the £74,917 to tax and to increase the appellant's taxation by £26,219 from £95,036 to £121,256. The taxpayer objected to the amended assessment upon the ground that the sum of £74,917 was not a premium and that the amendment to the assessment was forbidden by s. 170 sub-s. (3) of the Act in. that the taxpayer had in its return made a full and true