PUNTER TO PAY.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIV, Issue 259, 2 November 1933, Page 10

PUNTER TO PAY.

SYDNEY BOOKMAKER.

INCOME TAX ON WINNINGS.

INVESTMENT ON AMOUNIS,

(From Our Own Correspondent.) SYDNEY, October 26. In the case of Ernest Vandenberg, the bookmaker-punter whose successful "plunges" on Amounis I described some time ago, Mr. Justice Halso Rogers has given his reserved judgment, and his decision seems to most people rather a surprising one. The question was whether Vandenberg, a bookmaker registered under tlie A.R.C., having won large sums by backing Amounis at Randwick, was liable for income tax on his winnings. His Honor, after due consideration, ruled in favour of the Taxation Department. He held that in this case "the basic fact is the bookmaking business carried on by the appellant." In this instance, the appellant was not only a bookmaker, but a better using the knowledge that he had obtained in the course of his ordinary business; and Mr. Justice Rogers thought that "when we have such a man systematically indulging in a series of betting on a large scale, the proper inference to draw is that he was carrying it on as a business." His Honor admitted that Vandenberg probably never regarded his punting in that way, but "in actual fact, it was just as important a matter to him, on the figures, as his bookmaking business itself." Therefore the Court held that — with the exception of £>000 "earned" in Victoria —the whole of Vandenberg's winnings on Amounis in New South Wales —about £10,000 —was liable for income tax. Mr. Justice Rogers was careful to point out that "if it were not for the evidence that the appellant carried on the business of betting" he would have found that the money cleared from his operations of betting on Amounis was not taxable. This seems clear enough, but it was .evidently misunderstood by a great many people. For two or three of our newspapers, in commenting on the case, which has naturally aroused great public interest, have thought it necessary to explain that Mr. Justice Halse Rogers' decision does not mean that the ordinary punter's winnings can be taxed, however much he wins. In Vandenberg's case the point was that "when a bookmaker systematically indulges in betting over a series of years, so that the transactions become practically continuous, entirely apart from his bookmaking business, the bookmaker must be said to be carrying on a punting business," and therefore he becomes liable to taxation "on the profits of his speculative investments." But the average citizen who "puts money on," either with the "bookie" or the "tote," is still quite at liberty to win £10,000 on the Melbourne Cup if he likes, without fear of the Taxation Department —so long as lie does not do it often enough to make his habit of winning a "business" in the eves of the law.