- (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. Mr. Magnuss main point which he put in the forefront of his argument were these : the taxpayer had no contractual title to the payments, that is to say, there was nothing in the terms of his engagements which said he would be entitled to receive and retain presents of money made to him by followers or supporters of the hunt at Christmas time; secondly, there is the point that, both with the Bathurst and with the Woodland Pytchely, the taxpayer was engaged as huntsman by the master at a weekly wage; and further, not only was there no contract about the presents of money at Christmas but nothing was said about them on the occasion of the taxpayers engagement in either case. Then, as I have already said, the payments were made by persons other than the taxpayers employer; they were, in fact, made by the followers and supporters of the hunt and were purely voluntary payments inasmuch as the persons making them were under no legal obligation to do so.;