Victorian Employers Federation v Commissioner of Taxation (Cth) [1957] HCA 37

High Court of Australia Kitto J. Victorian Employers Federation v Commissioner of Taxation (Cth) [1957] HCA 37

ORDER Appeal dismissed with costs.

Cur. adv. vult.

J Kitto delivered the following written judgment:

June 11 Kitto J

This is an appeal under s. 196 of the Income Tax Assessment Act 1936-1947 Cth., from the disallowance by a Board of Review of an objection to an assessment of income tax based on income derived by the appellant during the year ended 30th June 1947.

The only ground of objection was, in effect, that the appellant's income was exempt from income tax by virtue of par. (f) of s. 23 of the Act. That paragraph makes exempt "the income of a trade union and the income of an association of employers or employees registered under any Act or State Act, or under any law in force in a Territory being part of the Commonwealth relating to the settlement of industrial disputes". The appellant was not in the relevant year registered under any Act of the Commonwealth or of a State or of a Territory relating to the settlement of industrial disputes. Its claim to exemption rests upon the contention that it filled the description of a trade union.

The Act contains no definition of "trade union". The expression is defined in the Oxford Dictionary as meaning "an association of the workers in any trade or in allied trades for the protection and furtherance of their interests in regard to wages, hours, and conditions of labour, and for the provision, from their common funds, of pecuniary assistance to the members during strikes, sickness, unemployment, old age, etc." The appellant is admittedly not a trade union in this sense. It is a company limited by guarantee, a member of which must be an employer of a person or persons in some occupation or an association or representative of an association formed in the interests of such employers or a company, firm or institution. It is concerned, broadly, with promoting the interests of employers. The exemption in s. 23 (f) therefore cannot apply to the appellant's income unless in that provision of the Act "trade union" is used in a sense which comprehends associations of employers.