Hoysted v Federal Commissioner of Taxation [1925] UKPCHCA 3

Cons Cons Apel Roll Multistar ia 'ooper & Heb clme Petts, Ubinas Aamepitre TOALD 213 Ot Se ya 1 CLR deo we 290 HIGH COURT [PRIVY COUNCIL] HOYSTED AND OTHERS APPELLANTS AND THE FEDERAL COMMISSIONER OF i) R TAXATION Siemens ON APPEAL FROM THE HIGH COURT. Privy . Land Tax—Assessment—Joint owners—Deduction of £5,000—Estoppel by judgment Suan —Res judicata—Admission of fact—Assumption of legal quality of a fact—Land 1925. Lax Assessment Act 1910-1916 (No. 22 of 1910—No. 33 of 1916), secs. 3, 10, ee par 11, 38, 384.

The admission of a fact fundamental to a particular decision arrived at cannot be withdrawn and a fresh litigation started with a view of obtaini another judgment upon a different assumption of fact. The same prineij applies to an erroneous assumption as to the legal quality of that fact, also where a point, fundamental to the decision, taken or assumed by plaintiff and traversable by the defendant has not been traversed.

In respect of Federal land tax for a particular year upon certain land vest in trustees under the will of a testator who died before Ist July 1910, trustees by their return claimed seven deductions of £5,000. 'The Commissi of Taxation in assessing them disallowed the deductions in respect of beneficiaries on the ground that "the joint owners" did not any of hold original shares in the land. The trustees lodged objections: (1) that beneficiaries were entitled to the beneficial interest in the land or the incom

therefrom "in such a way that they are taxable as joint owners" and that

~* Present—Lord Shaw, Lord Sumner, Lord Phillimore, Lord Darling a Lord Salvesen.

.L.R.J OF AUSTRALIA. pursuance of the Act, treated as an appeal and transmitted to the High Court. 'The appeal came before a Justice of the High Court, who stated a case for the opinion of the Full Court upon the questions (1) whether "the shares of the joint owners," or of any and which of them, in the land were original shares within the meaning of sec. 38, and (2) what number of deductions of £5,000 should the Commissioner make in the assessment of the "joint owners" of the land. No question was asked of the Full Court as to joint ownership = this was assumed. 'The Full Court answered the first question by saying 'that the shares of the six children of the testator surviving at the date of the assessment were original shares, and the second by saying that the number 'of deductions of £5,000 that should he made was six. The Justice who had stated the case thereupon, without further argument, made an order that the appeal be allowed, and that the number of deductions of £5,000 to be made be six.