UNEMPLOYMENT TAXATION

Otago Daily Times, Issue 21998, 6 July 1933, Page 6

UNEMPLOYMENT TAXATION

TRUSTEES OF DECEASED PERSON QUESTION OF LIABILITY (Per United Press Association.) WELLINGTON, July 6. Described by counsel as being “ of very considerable importance ” questions under the unemployment legislation concerning the estate of the late G. D. Greenwood, of Teviotdale, Canterbury, came before Mr Justice Ostler in the Supreme Court to-day. The questions were; Are the trustees of the deceased liable for the payment of the emergency unemployment charge imposed by the Unemployment Amendment Act, 1931, and Unemployment Amendment Act, 1932, in respect of the income (other than salary or wages) of the deceased in the following periods: (a) on November 1, 1932, and February 1, 1933. for income derived in the year ended March 31, 1932, and (b) on the first day of the months of May, August, and November, 1933, and February 1, 1934, for income from April 1, 1932, to August 28, 1932, the date of Mr Greenwood’s death. The trustees, Harold Dean Greenwood, sheep farmer,' and Frank Sturmer Wilding, solicitor, Christchurch, maintained that owing to Mr Greenwood’s death, neither they nor the estate were liable to pay, but to avoid the penalty imposed by the statutes, if their contention should be proved to be incorrect, they had paid the tax under protest, and the Commissioner of Unemployment had agreed to refund the amount paid or to make an adjustment, if it were found that the tax was not properly payable. Mr P. B. Cooke, for the trustees, submitted that the personal representatives of a person who died in any year mentioned in the statute were not liable for instalments of the charge in such year that did not become due and payable before bis death. He further contended that the personal representatives of a person who died in any year mentioned in the statute were not liable for the charge in the following year. On both questions Mr Cooke made the general observation, which he said he desired to press, that even if the court should come to the conclusion that all he had submitted previously was unsound, the circumstance remained that the statute was silent on the points raised. The Solicitor-general, for the Attorneygeneral, contended that the crucial point was in respect of all income after, the passing of the Unemployment ■ Amendment Act, 1931. There was a liability to pay the unemployment tax, and the fact that Mr Greenwood died on August 28, 1932, did not exempt the income he received be.tween March 31, 1932, and the date of his death from liability for the unemployment tax. His submission was that the charge was attached to the income of the previous year as soon as it was earned, and was payable at a later date. That, it was contended, was the scheme of the Act. The charge was not a personal tax in any sense, but was in respect of income. It was the existence of income that attracted the tax, not the continued existence of the taxpayer. . After hearing Mr Cooke in reply his Honor reserved his decision.