APPEAL DISMISSED

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 19827, 29 April 1927, Page 6

APPEAL DISMISSED

SECRET PRINTING PROCESS DISPUTE OVER PAYMENT OF DUTY. [Per Press Association.] AUCKLAND, April 27. An interesting judgment, upholding the decision of the Commissioner of Stamp Duties that a secret process could be classed as property and so taxed under the Stamp Duties Act, was given in the Supreme Court by Air Justice Stringer The New Era Printers and Publishers, Ltd., Auckland, appealed against the assessment of duty by the Commissioner of Stamp Duties on an agreement for the sale of a secret process of offset printing. His Honour said that by agreement the Offset Press, Ltd., agreed to sell to John E. Hobart, as agent for tho appellants, a secret process for a sum of not less thaji £30,000. The Commissioner held that the process was definable as property and was liable to duty as on a conveyance of sale. The case raised two questions: (1) Whether the secret process was a process within the meaning of the Stamp Duties Act; and (2) whether it was assessable if admitted to be property. “Property, as defined in the Stamp Act, means every description of proper- ; ty of a proprietary right and every I estate or interest in property, whether j legal or equitable, and whether cor- | poreal or incorporeal, and includes | goodwill,” his Honour said. “This is I as wide and as comprehensive a defi- I nition as could well be framed, and it is difficult to imagine anything capable of being bought and sold which would not come within it. The authorities appear to me to establish beyond question that a secret process is property within tho meaning of the Stamp Duties Act. The agreement shows that it was considered by the parties to be property of a kind not limited to the ownership of one particular person, but of a kind which could be sold to different people in different parts of the world, and therefore the limited disclosure of the secret did not de- | stroy the value of the property.” The Judge added: “In my opinion a secret process is not a thing in action, inasmuch as it is not a thing recoverable by action, as it is in the physical possession of the owner, so long, at any rate, as he does not disclose it. It seems to me that while he retains the secret process in his brain it is as much in his phyieal possession as anything in his pocket. For the reasons given I am of opinion that the Commissioner’s assessment was correct, and the appeal is therefore dis- | missed, with £l5 15s costs and dis- ’ bursement