Mullens Investments Pty Ltd v Commissioner of Taxation (Cth) [1976] HCA 47

High Court of Australia Barwick C.J. McTiernan and Stephen JJ. Mullens Investments Pty Ltd v Commissioner of Taxation (Cth) [1976] HCA 47

ORDER Appeals allowed with costs. Order of the Supreme Court of New South Wales (Administrative Law Division) set aside and in lieu thereof order that the appeals to that Court be allowed with costs. Matters remitted to the Commissioner to reassess in accordance with the reasons for judgment of this Court.

Cur. adv. vult.

The following written judgments were delivered:—

1976, Sept. 9 Barwick C.J.

Sections 77A(3) and (4) of the Income Tax Assessment Act, 1936 as amended ("the Act"), effective until 30th June 1969, are in the following terms:

(3) Subject to this section, a petroleum exploration company may, for the purposes of the next succeeding sub-section and Division 10aa of this Part, before the expiration of one month after the end of a year of income of the company in which the company has received moneys paid on shares or within such further time as the Commissioner allows, lodge with the Commissioner a declaration in writing signed by the public officer of the company that the company has expended, or proposes to expend, such of those moneys as are specified in the declaration in carrying on prospecting or mining operations in Australia for the purpose of discovering or obtaining petroleum or on plant necessary for carrying on such operations.

(4) The amount of any moneys paid on shares paid by a person in a year of income of that person to a company and included in moneys specified in a declaration lodged by the company under the last preceding sub-section shall, subject to this section, be an allowable deduction from the accessable income derived by that person in that year of income.

For the purposes of these reasons, I have treated the appellants as a single person throughout though the situation was in fact otherwise. There are, in all, eleven appeals. But nothing turns on the identity of others associated with the appellant in the relevant transactions who are also appellants. I have chosen his case as symptomatic of those of other taxpayers associated with him: the result of their appeals will be the same as the result of his.