Adams v Federal Commissioner of Land Tax [1919] HCA 42

OF AUSTRALIA.

[HIGH COURT OF AUSTRALIA.)

APPELLANT ;

AND

THE FEDERAL COMMISSIONER OF LAND } ee _J Resronpent.

Land Tax—Assessment—Equitable life tenant—Annuitants— Owner "—* Joint owners" —Land Tax Assessment Act 1910-1911 (No. 22 of 1910—No. 12 of 1911), secs. 3, 34, 35, 38.

By his will a testator who died before Ist July 1910 devised certain land and premises to trustees upon trust to carry on the business in which he was 'engaged at the time of his death, and he directed them out of the net profits of the business and the rents of the properties to pay certain " annuities or yearly 'sums of money" to certain persons for their lives, and " subject to the pay- ment of the aforesaid annuities or yearly sums " to pay the net profits annually to the appellant, his nephew.

Held, that the appellant was the ''owner " of the properties within the definition of that word in sec. 3 of the Land Tax Assessment Act 1910-1911, and that the annuitants were not "joint owners" with him of those pro- perties, and, therefore, that the appellant was properly assessed as the owner of an equitable estate for life in the whole of the land, a deduction from the unimproved value thereof being made under sec. 34 of a sum which bore the same proportion to the value of the annuities as the unimproved value of the land bore to its improved value.

Cochrane v. Federal Commissioner of Land Tax, 21 C.L.R., 422, followed.

_ CASE STATED.

On an appeal by William Joseph Adams to the High Court from

_ an assessment of him for Federal land tax for the year 1911-1912, Barton J. stated the following case for the opinion of the

H. C. or A. ww Sypyry, August 12.

Rarton, Isaacs, and Rich JJ.

H.C. or A. 1919, wy

Apams v. Feperat Commis-

SIONER Lanp Tax.

HIGH COURT 191

1. George Adams formerly of Hobart in the State of Tasmani now deceased, was at the date of his death hereinafter mentioned the owner of (inter alia) land and personalty situated in the States of Tasmania and New South Wales.