WRIGHT Vs. BOYCE (INSPECTOR OF TAXES)

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This is an appeal from a judgment of Vaisy J. dated March 6, 1958, whereby he upheld a decision of the special commissioners in favour of the Crown to the effect that the taxpayer, Joseph Wright, was taxable under Schedule E on certain voluntary payments made to him at Christmas in each of the seven years 1948/49 to 1954/55.

(2.) The taxpayer was employed as a professional hunt servant. He had been a hunt servant all his life and, in 1946, he was appointed huntsman to the Bathurst Hunt. He remained there from 1946 to 1952 or thereabouts and he then went from the Bathurst Hunt to the Woodland Pytchely Hunt. In his capacity as huntsman successively with these two hunts he was the senior member of the hunt staff and occupied a responsible position. It is important to observe that the taxpayer was engaged in the case of each hunt by the master and not by any body which could be said to be representative of the hunt as such. In each case the constitution of the hunt (as described in the case stated) may be said to have been nebulous in the extreme. As cases of this kind turn very much on the particular facts, it will be necessary for me to quote at some length from the stated case, but, before I do that, I might perhaps indicate the points upon which Mr. Magnus for the taxpayer especially relied.

(3.) The payments in dispute were voluntary payments and, as I have said, the huntsman was employed by the master. The payments came from persons who can be succinctly described as followers or supporters of the hunt.