The taxpayer had sold shares to a third party in 1933 under a contract which he came to say had been induced by fraud. In 1939 he obtained a judgment reducing the contract, with effect from the date that it was made, together with orders that the shares be retransferred to him and a sum paid to him representing the dividends which the purchaser had received while he was registered as the shareholder. After the judgment, the Revenue repaid the surtax assessed on the dividends in the hands of the fraudulent purchaser and assessed the taxpayer instead. The years of assessment were those in which the dividends had been paid by the company.
Held: The assessment was valid.in the Inner House of the Court of Session.
Lord President Normand said: ‘In this case the contract was not void; it was merely voidable on the ground that it had been induced by fraudulent misrepresentations. When a contract has been induced by fraudulent misrepresentations, it is open to the party defrauded either to sue for rescission of the contract or to sue for damages. In this case the party sued for rescission and in the end of the day he obtained a decree of reduction. The effect of that reduction was to restore things to their position at the date of the transaction reduced, with the result that as at that date and afterwards the successful pursuer in the action fell to be treated as having been the person in titulo of the shares which he had sold to the defender and therefore to have been in right of the dividends. No doubt it is true that in the interval the dividends had to be paid and were paid to the defender because his name stood in the register as the proprietor of the shares and no doubt also they were for the time being treated by the Inland Revenue as his income and while matters stood entire no other person had any right to the shares or to the dividends except the defender, Mr Crawford. But from the moment the reduction took place Mr Spence fell to be treated as having been throughout the proprietor of the shares and equally the person properly entitled to receive the dividends. On the other hand the Inland Revenue repaid to Mr Crawford the surtax attributable to the dividends actually paid to him by the company on the footing that he had never been in titulo to receive them.’
Judges:
Lord President Normand
Citations:
(1941) 24 TC 311
Jurisdiction:
Scotland
Cited by:
Distinguished – Morley-Clarke v Jones (Inspector of Taxes) CA 1986
In 1969 an order had been made in divorce proceedings for the payment by the husband to the wife of a sum by way of maintenance for their child. In 1979 the order was varied with effect from the date of the original order, so as to make the sum . .
Cited – John Mander Pension Trustees Ltd v Revenue and Customs SC 29-Jul-2015
The pension scheme had been approved, but that approval later withdraw. HMRC issued assessment for the years in which it had been approved. The taxpayer argued that such assessments applied to the date with effect from which the approval is . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Income Tax
Updated: 09 May 2022; Ref: scu.591247