Glynn v Commissioner of Taxation (Cth) [1964] HCA 50

High Court of Australia Kitto J. Glynn v Commissioner of Taxation (Cth) [1964] HCA 50

ORDER Appeal allowed with costs. Assessment remitted to the Commissioner in order that it may be amended by excluding from the estate of the deceased the shares mentioned in the objection and by deducting as consisting of debts due and owing by the deceased at the time of his death the sum of £6,090 therein mentioned.

Cur. adv. vult.

Sept. 4 Kitto J. delivered the following written judgment:—

Harold Marcus Glynn died on 2nd October 1954, being at that date the registered holder of a large parcel of shares in a company called Glynns Pty. Limited. The respondent Commissioner made an assessment of the estate duty payable on the deceased's estate under the Estate Duty Assessment Act 1914-1953 Cth, and in doing so treated the whole of the shares as having belonged to the deceased beneficially. The administrators objected upon three grounds. The first ground related to 1,424 shares in Glynns Pty. Limited, which the deceased had acquired in 1920 by transfer from his mother Kate Glynn. The second ground related to 176 shares in that company which the deceased had acquired, also in 1920, from his brother Leo Patrick Glynn. As to all these shares, totalling 1,600, it was said that the deceased had received them without consideration and upon trust for other persons, and that he had never had any beneficial interest in them. The third ground related to a sum of £6,090 made up of dividends received by the deceased on the 1,600 shares. The administrators said that the deceased had retained the dividends in breach of trust and that they constituted a debt due and owing by him at his death and were deductible under s. 17 of the Act accordingly. The Commissioner disallowed the objections and the administrators requested him to refer his decision to a Board of Review. The Board confirmed the assessment, giving no reasons beyond the bare statement that the amount of the assessment had not been shown to be excessive.