Global Network v Commissioner of Taxation [2004] NSWSC 474

New South Wales Supreme Court

CITATION : Global Network v Commissioner of Taxation [2004] NSWSC 474 HEARING DATE(S) : 28/05/2004 JUDGMENT DATE : 28 May 2004 JURISDICTION: Equity Division JUDGMENT OF : Master Macready at 1 DECISION : Paragraph 22

CATCHWORDS : Corporations Law. Application to set aside demand relying on s459J(1)(b). Held defect was a defect in demand and s45GJ(1)(a) applied. No substantial injustice. Proceedings dismissed. PARTIES : Global Network Services Pty Limited, Deputy Commissioner of Taxation of the Commonwealth of Australia FILE NUMBER(S) : SC 4458/2003 COUNSEL : Ms Lee for plaintiff E. Chiaw for defendant SOLICITORS : Middletons for plaintiff Australian Taxation Office Legal Practice

- 1 - THE SUPREME COURT OF NEW SOUTH WALES EQUITY DIVISION

MASTER MACREADY

FRIDAY 28 MAY 2004

4458/03 - GLOBAL NETWORK SERVICES PTY LIMITED v DEPUTY COMMISSIONER OF TAXATION OF THE COMMONWEALTH OF AUSTRALIA

JUDGMENT

1 MASTER: This is an application to set aside a statutory demand which was served by the defendant upon the plaintiff. The demand was dated 29 July 2003 and claimed an amount of $232,219.35. The application to set aside was made on the basis that there is some other reason to set aside the demand pursuant to s 459J of the Act. The particular problem arises because the demand claims a total, to which I have referred, and splits it up into three separate components. Items (b) and (c) in the schedule to the demand are fairly clear. They are particular sums for to particular assessments for income tax and indeed the plaintiff does not dispute these. The first part is item (a) which is in these terms: "Running Balance Account deficit debt as at 29 July 2003 in respect of amounts due under the BAS provisions as defined in subsection 995-1(1) of the Income Tax Assessment Act 1997 ("the ITAA 1997") [BAS provisions include, generally: the goods and services tax provisions, the PAYG withholding provisions, the PAYG instalment provisions, the fringe benefits tax instalment provisions and the deferred company instalment provisions] and the general interest charge payable under section 8AAZF of the Taxation Administration Act 1953 ("The TAA 1953"), being a debt due and payable by the company pursuant to section 8AAZH of the TAA 1953." 2 It can be seen that as it is described it is an apparent sub-total defined in a running balance account dealing with a variety of different taxes, including PAYE, fringe benefits tax and deferred company instalments. 3 The basis of the application to set aside under s 459J is that there is some other reason to set aside the demand because it is not immediately apparent on the face of the demand how the amount is calculated. There is a general summary and just a statement of an amount. 4 The plaintiff does not dispute that there is a substantial amount owing and in the affidavit in support have raised questions as to whether or not there has been an attempt to compound the amount. That argument was abandoned and the argument concentrates around s 459J. 5 A matter was raised that the affidavit in support which was filed in time, namely, that of Debra Janine Taylor sworn 21 August 2003, did not identify that ground. The most recent exposition of case law in this area is that of Austin J in POS Media v B Family (2003) NSWSC 147. There his Honour said: "26 The principle asserted by the defendant is that the plaintiff cannot succeed on the 'no debt' ground, because that ground was not set out in Mr Patkin's affidavit of 9 December 2002, and cannot be characterised as an extension of the grounds set out in that affidavit. 27 The principle is said to arise out of s 459G, which states: '459G (1) A company may apply to the Court for an order setting aside a statutory demand served on the company. (2) An application may only be made within 21 days after the demand is so served. (3) An application is made in accordance with this section only if, within those 21 days: (a) an affidavit supporting the application is filed with the Court; and (b) a copy of the application, and a copy of the supporting affidavit, are served on the person who served the demand on the company.' 28 In David Grant & Co Pty Ltd v Westpac Banking Corporation (1995) 184 CLR 265 the High Court of Australia held that an application to set aside a statutory demand is to be made within 21 days of service of the demand, and not at some time thereafter, and that to treat s 1322 as authorising the Court to extend the 21 day period would be to deprive the word 'only' in s 459(2) of effect (per Gummow J at 276). The David Grant case implied that the plaintiff must file and serve, within the 21 day period, not only the application but also an affidavit falling within the description of 'an affidavit supporting the application'; in assessing whether these requirements have been satisfied, the Court is not to have regard to any supplementary affidavit filed and served by the plaintiff at a later time. 29 Section 459G does not prescribe the content of the application. That is left to the Rules of Court, which are now substantially uniform. The application is made by an originating process, which according to Rule 2.2 of the Corporations Rules of the various Courts, and the associated Form 2, must set out the relief sought and the sections of the Corporations Act under which the proceeding is brought, but need not plead the grounds upon which the relief is sought. The defendant's interest in knowing the plaintiff's claim is catered for by the general rules of Court regarding particulars, and the Court's power to order that the matter proceed by pleadings or points of claim in an appropriate case. 30 In the absence of authority, one might have thought that an affidavit would 'support' such an application if it deposed to facts that would ( alone or together with other evidence) justify the grant of some such relief as the application sought, once the plaintiff articulated (at the hearing, if not earlier) the reasoning by which those facts would warrant that relief. One would not expect the supporting affidavit to supply the intermediate reasoning, in the nature of a pleading. Assertions in an affidavit in the nature of submissions are normally held inadmissible, if challenged. 31 However, the law has taken rather a different course. In Graywinter Properties Pty Ltd v Gas & Fuel Corporation Superannuation Fund (1996) 70 FCR 452, Sundberg J was dealing with an application to set aside a statutory demand on the basis that there was a genuine dispute as the existence of the debt. Perhaps influenced by a supplementary Federal Court Rule in force at the time, he said (at 459): 'In a s 459H(1)(a) case, the affidavit must in my view disclose facts showing there is a genuine dispute between the parties. A mere assertion that there is a genuine dispute is not enough. Nor is a bare claim that the debt is disputed sufficient. It follows from the fact that the affidavit need not go into evidence, which is the customary function of affidavit, that it may read like a pleading.' 32 Those observations have been taken up and applied frequently in first instance decisions - for example, Zenaust Imports Pty Ltd v Olympic Chemicals Works Co Ltd (1998) 28 ACSR 465; Z-Tek Computers Pty Ltd v Aus Linx International Pty Ltd (1997) 15 ACLC 1233; SMEC International Pty Ltd v CEMS Engineering Inc (2001) 38 ACSR 595. In the Zenaust case, however, Santow J added (at 469) the qualification that an affidavit in support of a notice to set aside a statutory demand could not fairly be expected to rise higher than the level of articulation of the claimed debt in the statutory demand. 33 These cases dealt with the minimum content requirements for the affidavit in support of the application. A corollary of their reasoning is that if the affidavit discloses certain grounds only, the plaintiff should be limited to those grounds at the hearing. That proposition was accepted in D & S Group of Companies Pty Ltd v O'Connor Investments Pty Ltd (1997) 15 ACLC 1794, where Perry J remarked (at 1798), in respect of an affidavit filed on behalf of the plaintiff well after the expiration of the period of 21 days, 'in so far as it raises any ground offered in support of the application not identified in the affidavit ... filed within time, [it] could not be taken into account in determining the application'. The same point was accepted by Mandie J in Missay Pty Ltd v Seventh Cameo Nominees Pty Ltd (in liq) [2000] VSC 397. 34 Those decisions should be compared with Callite Pty Ltd v Adams [2001] NSWSC 52. In that case the statutory demand was by solicitors who sought to recover in respect of fees charged for legal work. At the hearing the plaintiff (the client) wanted to assert that there was a genuine dispute because the defendant (the solicitor) had not complied with mandatory requirements of the Legal Profession Act 1987 (NSW). The affidavit supporting the client's application to set aside the statutory demand annexed the relevant invoices but did not assert the ultimate facts that would allow the legal conclusion to be drawn that there had been no proper fee disclosure as required by the Legal Profession Act. However, it was evident on the face of the invoices that they did not comply with the requirements of that Act in various ways. Santow J held that it was unnecessary for the affidavit to point out explicitly that omissions had occurred, since it was self-evident from a perusal of the annexed accounts that they lacked certain mandatory inclusions. He concluded (at [12]) that : 'the legal consequences which follow are not required to be pleaded in such an affidavit'. 35 We now have the benefit of three decisions by an intermediate appellate court. The Full Court of the Supreme Court of Western Australia has followed Sundberg J's observations and their corollary in Meadowfield Pty Ltd v Gold Coast Holdings Pty Ltd (in liq) [2001] WASCA 360; Energy Equity Corporation Ltd v Sinedie Pty Ltd (2001) 166 FLR 179 and Financial Solutions Australasia Pty Ltd v Predella Pty Ltd (2002) 167 FLR 106. However, the Financial Solutions case has reduced the Graywinter 'principle' to a more fact-specific inquiry. 36 The Meadowfield case applied Sundberg J's observations about the 'minimum requirements' for the affidavit without adding anything of general application. In the Energy Equity case, the question was whether the plaintiff could seek to establish at the hearing that it had an offsetting claim in negligence in relation to a particular contract, when all that had been relevantly said in the affidavit filed within time was that there were 'a string of off-setting claims'. After examining the authorities Wallwork J (with whom Steytler J and Olsson A-UJ agreed) concluded (at 185, in a passage described in the Financial Solutions case as an obiter dictum): 'In my view it now seems to be accepted that an affidavit filed outside the 21-day period which raises a new ground or grounds to set aside a statutory demand (as opposed to an affidavit which expands on grounds in an earlier affidavit which has satisfied the threshold test) cannot be used in an application of this nature.' 37 In the Financial Solutions case, the plaintiff contended at the hearing that there was a genuine dispute as to the existence of the debt claimed in the statutory demand, for two reasons. First, the plaintiff said that the defendant claimed as assignee under a deed of assignment which mistakenly identified the deeds of loan to which the assignment related, and secondly, the plaintiff said that the defendant was not a permitted assignee under the terms of the deeds. The affidavit supporting the application said only that the plaintiff had not sighted the deed of assignment and genuinely believed that the assignment might be void and ineffective, and was seeking discovery of the documents referred to in the statutory demand in order to establish whether the defendant had a legally enforceable claim against it. 38 Applying the observations of Sundberg J in Graywinter , and also the views of Young J in John Holland Construction and Engineering Pty Ltd v Kilpatrick Green Pty Ltd (1994) 12 ACLC 716, Parker J (with whom Anderson and Scott JJ agreed) held (at 115) that the material facts on which the plaintiff intended to rely to show a genuine dispute were sufficiently, 'though less than ideally', set out in the affidavit and its annexures. He observed, applying the views of Young J in the John Holland case, that the affidavit went beyond mere assertion. As to Sundberg J's observations, he said that they were apt to the circumstances with which Sundberg J was concerned, but 'there is reason to hesitate and hold back from acceptance of the apparent effect of the submission for Financial Solutions that the concluding paragraph of the passages cited earlier from Sundberg J's reasons in Graywinter reveal a settled and universal principle, which must be satisfied by an affidavit before it can be accepted as 'supporting the application' within the meaning of s 4 59G(3)(a) and as satisfying the jurisdictional requirement being considered. The statutory yardstick remains that the affidavit should support the application. The precise nature of the application may well influence what this requires.' 39 Barrett J of this Court carefully reviewed the case law in Process Machinery Australia Pty Ltd v ACN 057 260 590 Pty Ltd [2002] NSWSC 45, although his judgment was delivered before the Financial Solutions decision. Barrett J's conclusions were as follows: