Moore v Commonwealth

[1951] HCA 10

High Court of Australia|1951-07-01|Before: Kitto JJ

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Court

High Court of Australia

Decision date

1951-07-01

Before

Kitto JJ

Source

Original judgment source is linked above.

Judgment (74 paragraphs)

[1]

High Court of Australia Latham C.J. Dixon, McTiernan, Webb, Fullagar and Kitto JJ. Moore v Commonwealth [1951] HCA 10

[2]

ORDER Demurrer allowed with costs. Judgment in action for defendants with costs.

[3]

The plaintiffs Desmond Carty Moore and Thomas Anthony Darcy are producers of wool within the meaning of the Wool Sales Deduction (Administration) Act 1950 and the Wool Sales Deduction Act (No. 1) 1950 and the Wool Sales Deduction Act (No. 2) 1950. (I shall hereafter refer to these Acts respectively as the Administration Act, Act No. 1 and Act No. 2.) The plaintiffs are owners of wool to which the Administration Act and one or other of the other Acts apply. The wool is held by wool-broking companies for disposition on behalf of the plaintiffs. The plaintiffs intend to sell the wool through the brokers either otherwise than for delivery out of Australia (the case to which Act No. 1 applies) or to export the wool (in which case Act No. 2 would apply). In the former case the brokers and the plaintiffs would be liable under Act No. 1 and the Administration Act to pay to the Commonwealth one-fifth of the sale value of the wool as defined in s. 3 of Act No. 1. In the latter case the brokers and the plaintiffs would be liable under Act No. 2 and the Administration Act to pay to the Commonwealth one-fifth of the appraised value of the wool as determined in accordance with Act No. 2, s. 3. Wool producers receive credit for payments made by brokers on account of their wool, and the liability of the broker to a wool producer is discharged pro tanto by payments made by him under the Act to the Commissioner of Taxation (Administration Act, s. 6). The Administration Act contains in s. 6 (1) (b) provisions which apply the Acts to producers who dispose of their wool direct and not through brokers. Payments due under the Acts are made to the Commissioner of Taxation. Upon payment being made, a wool-deduction certificate is issued to the producer - Administration Act, s. 8. A producer is required to forward all wool-deduction certificates delivered to him in respect of wool sold, disposed of, or exported in a year of income to the commissioner with the return which he is required to furnish in respect of that year of income under s. 161 of the Income Tax Assessment Act 1936-1949 - Administration Act, s. 10. Under the last-mentioned section the commissioner is required to credit the amount of the certificate in payment or part payment of net income tax payable in respect of the income of that year of income. If the amount of the wool-deduction certificate exceeds the net tax the excess amount is paid to the producer, and if no income tax is payable an amount equal to the amount of the certificate is paid to him.

[8]

The plaintiffs further submit that if, contrary to the contention already mentioned, the Acts are held to be laws with respect to taxation, they are invalid because they infringe s. 55 of the Constitution. Section 55 is as follows: - "Laws imposing taxation shall deal only with the imposition of taxation, and any provision therein dealing with any other matter shall be of no effect. Laws imposing taxation, except laws imposing duties of customs or of excise, shall deal with one subject of taxation only; but laws imposing duties of customs shall deal with duties of customs only, and laws imposing duties of excise shall deal with duties of excise only." It is argued that if Acts Nos. 1 and2 are laws with respect to taxation they are laws imposing taxation. It is said that they incorporate the provisions of the Administration Act and that the Administration Act is not a law dealing only with the imposition of taxation because it provides for the collection of tax and the application of moneys received under the alleged tax and that the Act is therefore "of no effect" - so that the whole scheme breaks down. It is further argued that the Administration Act is also a law imposing taxation because it declares that persons shall be liable to pay moneys to the Commonwealth or a commissioner. Such a law, therefore, must deal with one subject of taxation only. If it deals with more than one subject of taxation it must be void under the second part of s. 55. The Administration Act, viewed as a law imposing taxation is, it is contended, a law which deals with a tax upon wool and also with income tax, and therefore it deals with two subjects of taxation. Finally, it is contended that Act No. 1, relating to wool sold otherwise than for delivery out of Australia, if it is a law with respect to taxation, is a law which imposes a duty of excise. Similarly, Act No. 2, which relates to exported wool, is an Act dealing with duties of customs. The final provision in s. 55 requires such laws to deal respectively with duties of excise only or with duties of customs only. It is contended that the Administration Act deals with duties of customs and with duties of excise together, that Act No. 1 deals with duties of excise, and, because it incorporates the Administration Act, also with income tax, and that Act No. 2 deals with duties of customs, and also, because it also incorporates the Administration Act, with income tax.

[11]

Parliament might have provided for the payment of one-fifth of the value of the wool without any provision for refunds or for crediting the amount of deductions against income tax. Such a law would plainly have been within power. The addition of provisions for payment to, or crediting to producers, sums of money at a subsequent date cannot render such a law invalid. Federal legislation may validly provide that moneys shall be collected as taxes subject to subsequent adjustment to procure accuracy in final assessment of liability. Such a provision is to be found in many taxation Acts; for example, in the Income Tax Assessment Acts there are provisions requiring prompt payment of a liability as assessed by the commissioner notwithstanding that the taxpayer is entitled to lodge and may have lodged objections, which objections may ultimately be upheld. So also ss. 221A et seq. of the Income Tax Assessment Act 1936-1949 relating to collection of income tax and social services contribution by instalments provide for payment of taxes in advance, the amount for which the taxpayer is really liable to be ascertained after the payments have been made. I refer also to the provisions contained in the Income Tax Assessment Act 1936-1949, ss. 221YA et seq., relating to provisional tax. These are provisions for payment in one year of an amount which is estimated as being the amount which will probably be payable in a following year. Rates of income tax may be changed at any time. But deductions to which a person is entitled in one year may be very much greater than those which he was able to claim in the preceding year. Such matters will affect the amount of tax which he finally should pay in respect of a particular year. All the provisions mentioned are provisions for payment of tax in advance when the amount payable cannot be accurately estimated. The provisions in the legislation under consideration are similar in character. I can see no reason for holding that any of them are invalid upon the ground suggested.

[29]

The plan disclosed by these three statutes is worked out by complicated provisions, the text of which must be studied if the exact operation of the legislation is to be understood, but in outline the plan may be briefly stated. It consists of the following steps. First, a liability is imposed upon the producer of shorn wool who (a) sells it or (b) exports it. The liability is to pay to the Commonwealth a proportion of, in the one case, the price and, in the other case, the value (as appraised) of the wool. Secondly, the proportion is fixed at one-fifth for the present financial year, but the fixing by Parliament of another fraction for next financial year is provided against; if, however, it is not done one-fifth is to stand as the proportion for that year. Thirdly, in the case of sale, the wool-selling broker must deduct the proportion from the price and pay it to the Commissioner of Taxation and give his client a certificate of the amount: in the case of export the producer must pay the proportion of the value to the Commissioner of Taxation before he exports the wool and the commissioner must give him a certificate of the amount. Fourthly, the producer is to send in the certificates with his income-tax return for the year of income in which the wool is sold or exported; the commissioner is to credit the amount they show against his liability for tax for that year and provisional tax for the next year after deduction of provisional tax for the current year and then against his liability for past income tax if there be any such liability undischarged. If there be any unapplied residue of the amounts of the certificates, it is to be repaid to the producer. Fifthly, if a proportion is fixed by a statute for a subsequent year and it differs from that prevailing at the opening of the year, the necessary adjustments are to be made in the amounts of the certificates given in the meantime and the differences paid to or by the producers accordingly; and if for two consecutive years no statute is passed specifically fixing the proportion for the year of income, then, as I read the legislation, its operation ceases or is suspended until that is done. At any time the operation of the Acts No. 30 and No. 31 may be terminated by proclamation. These Acts deal with the imposition of the liability, the amount of the proportion, and its continuance from one year to the next and the power to terminate the Acts by proclamation. They each say that expressions used in the respective Acts shall have the same meaning as in Act No. 29 and they expressly provide that the sub-section continuing the proportion from one year to the next shall be subject to the provisions contained in Act No. 29 for refunds where a less proportion is fixed for a financial year after its commencement and where no proportion is fixed for a financial year before the end of the financial year.

[34]

I shall therefore state first why, in my opinion, the legislation does not impose a new or distinct tax. To begin with, the money is either used to satisfy an existing tax, namely, income tax, actual or provisional, or else it is refunded. This is an important but I do not say decisive consideration. It is not decisive because the imposition of two taxes is conceivable where one is to be applied in reduction of the other. There is nothing impossible in a provision, if the Parliament chose to make it, by which, to take an imaginary example, payments of land tax should be treated as satisfying income tax pro tanto. It would remain a land tax. But here the purpose to which the wool-sales deductions are to be applied is the satisfaction of assessed income tax or provisional income tax; otherwise they are to be refunded. It is the only ostensible purpose for which payment of the money is exacted. Then Act No. 30 is an attempt to intercept part of the gross returns which, unless the circumstances were most exceptional, must form part of the current assessable income of the persons whose taxable income and provisionally taxable income is to supply the sole basis for a title on the part of the Commonwealth to retain the money once an assessment is made. Act No. 31 is an attempt to anticipate the sale and so to speak proleptically to intercept the proportion of the price and operates in the same way. In the third place the legislation is framed with an evident intention that the liability should not be a tax. We are only too well accustomed to the manner in which legislation for the imposition and the management of a tax is constructed and expressed. It is evident that in this legislation it has all been avoided with meticulous care. It is true that the device is employed of framing a general Act (No. 29) upon analogy to an assessment Act and Acts dealing specifically with liability ( Nos. 30 and31) upon analogy to taxing Acts. But it is equally evident that that is because it was feared that it would be argued that in spite of the avoidance of the terminology of taxation there was an imposition of a tax or taxes. The separation of the Acts is a tried and venerated procedure for escaping the hitherto ineffectual menaces of s. 55. Both the short and long titles of the Acts are significant. The general Act is an Administration Act and the special Acts are Wool Sales Deduction Acts.

[35]

But while for these reasons I do not think that the wool-sales deductions are in themselves taxes, I am unable to go with the plaintiffs in regarding the legislation as so divorced from the subject of taxation as to fall outside the scope of the power conferred by s. 51 (ii.). Needless to say, I treat the power as covering what is incidental to the imposition and collection of taxation. Everything which is incidental to the main purpose of a power is contained within the grant itself: Le Mesurier v. Connor [1] . The plaintiffs' argument did not deny - it could not deny - that as the wool-sales deductions were applicable and applicable only to the satisfaction of liabilities for income tax or provisional tax, they were given a connection with that tax or those taxes. But it was said that this only amounted to taking income tax as a peg upon which to hang the legislation and that it could not operate to make the legislation auxiliary or ancillary to the imposition and collection of income tax. In support of this view, reliance was placed for the plaintiffs on the effect which a number of provisions produced. A very obvious consideration was placed first among the matters adduced. It is that the amount taken as a deduction from the sales price or the appraised value of the wool sold or exported has no necessary or logical relation to the quantum of the liability for income tax. The amount of a wool producer's income tax for the year of income would depend upon a large number of the almost countless factors which may go into an assessment based upon the Income Tax and Social Services Contribution Assessment Act 1936-1950. No-one, so it was contended, could say that twenty per cent of the gross proceeds of the sale of his wool would be a fair provision against income tax upon the taxable income of the year. In a great measure this must be conceded and it is no doubt a consideration to be weighed. But the legal effect of the consideration is reduced if the view is adopted and is kept in mind that the power goes further than enabling the legislature to collect in advance moneys estimated to represent the probable tax of the individual considered as a separate taxpayer. It is, in my opinion, open to the legislature to lay down a general rule, to fix a flat rate, which in its judgment appears reasonably appropriate for the generality of cases. No doubt there are natural limits to what may be so fixed and if the figure is seen to go beyond what reasonably could be regarded as an anticipatory provision for tax the Court would say that that could not be its true character.

[36]

Perhaps among the matters relied on for the plaintiffs the second that should be mentioned is the operation of s. 10 of the Administration Act (No. 29) in placing provisional tax among the purposes to which the wool-sales deductions are to be applied. Section 10 operates to make the deductions applicable first in satisfying the balance remaining after the provisional tax of the previous assessment has been deducted from the sum of the tax and provisional tax assessed in the assessment made upon the bases of the year of income in which the sale or exportation of wool occurs. As the provisional tax of the previous assessment ought ideally to cover the tax of the current assessment, it is said that this really means that the wool-sales deductions are applied substantially in satisfying the provisional tax - that is to say, the provisional tax intended to cover the tax of the ensuing year. It is pointed out that the liability for provisional tax rests on an annual enactment for each specific year. Unlike ordinary income tax, the rates of the prior year are not continued in the absence of a fresh taxing Act. Compare, for example, s. 14 with s. 13 (2) of Act No. 49 of 1950, and see s. 221YB (3) of the Income Tax Assessment Act 1936-1949. Thus the wool-sales deductions, so it is contended, are made applicable in effect for a provisional tax not yet imposed. Accordingly, the argument is that there is no such connection in reality with an impending or accruing liability to income tax as would give to the wool-sales deduction the complexion of an exaction in aid of or ancillary to the collection of income tax. This argument appears to me to neglect Div. 3 of Part VI. of the Income Tax and Social Services Contribution Assessment Act 1936-1950, which at least shows that provisional tax is established as a statutory institution even if s. 221YB (3) does require an annual taxing enactment. What is more important it exaggerates the probability that the actual tax will correspond in amount with the provisional tax of the prior year. The legislation is the outcome of ever-rising prices of wool. However, the basal answer to the argument is that there is no reason why the legislation should not take part of the gross income in anticipation of an assessment of tax liability upon the net income, even if the liability will be the residual result of a calculation one element of which is a tax annually imposed so that another statute will be necessary, that other statute being customarily enacted.

[39]

Fourthly, great emphasis was placed upon the effect ascribed to s. 4 (1), (3) and (4) (b) of Acts No. 30 and No. 31 when read with s. 6 (1) (b) and s. 11 (2) (b) of Act No. 29. The meaning given to s. 4 (3) of Acts No. 30 and No. 31 is that, in the absence of a new enactment each year fixing the proportion for the current year of income, the proportion in force for the previous year would operate and that this might go on toties quoties indefinitely. But s. 4 (4) (b) of those Acts and s. 11 (2) (b) of Act No. 29 would require repayment if before 30th June of the year no such Act was passed. Thus the legislation would go on for an indefinite number of years, unless the legislature interfered, impounding the money for a period not exceeding twelve months, never applying it to income tax and requiring its repayment at the end of the financial year. From this it was said to appear that the legislation was but a device to impound the money for twelve months or less. I do not think that the argument correctly construes s. 4 (3) of Act No. 30 and of Act No. 31. The provision means that if the Parliament omits for one financial year specifically to fix the proportion, then for the next year the previous proportion shall apply. But that is not a "fixing" of the proportion so that it will again apply if in the succeeding year the Parliament repeats its failure to fix a proportion. "Fix" means fix specifically. There is therefore not an indefinite repetition of payments and repayments of the deductions. The sections mentioned are no more than machinery to deal with any one year in which contrary to expectation the Parliament passes no specific Act fixing the proportion. A second consecutive failure means that the legislation is spent. Finally it is pointed out that, subject to s. 171 of the Assessment Act 1936-1950, the commissioner may withhold an assessment indefinitely and thus avoid making a repayment of any surplus of the wool-sales deduction. That may be a defect in the legislation but it does not show that it is not ancillary to income tax. Certainly there is nothing to suggest that such inaction by the commissioner was contemplated. It was doubtless assumed that he would perform his functions in good faith, even if a credit balance to the taxpayer might result.

[56]

If it were reasonably clear on the face of Acts Nos. 30 and31 that the obligation to the Crown which they create was an obligation to pay a particular kind of tax which was not an income tax, I think I would agree that the character of the obligation so created would not be altered by the mere fact that another Act provided for an ultimate crediting against income tax of the amounts paid. A land tax would not cease to be a land tax simply because the amount of the tax paid was to be credited against a subsequent income-tax liability or was to be deducted from assessable income for the purpose of assessment to income tax. Nor would the Act which imposed the liability to land tax cease for any such reason to be an Act imposing taxation. But, in my opinion, Acts Nos. 30 and31 do not on their face create an obligation to pay a particular kind of tax which is not an income tax. I gravely doubt whether, even if those Acts had stood alone, they would have been rightly regarded as imposing respectively a duty of excise and a duty of customs. The taxes, if taxes they be, are, not only in form but in substance, direct and not indirect. They cannot be effectively "passed on" and, of course, are not intended to be "passed on". Moreover, in the case of Act No. 30, the liability is not made to depend, either directly or (as in Matthews v. Chicory Marketing Board [1] ) inferentially, on production or on quantity produced or sold. And, although, in the case of Act No. 31, it may be said that it is the act of exportation that brings the liability into existence, it does not follow that the exaction is a true export duty. Being a producer of wool seems to be the really critical factor. If Acts Nos. 30 and31 had stood alone, I should have thought that there was a very great deal to be said for the view that the tax, if tax it be, was really an income tax - a tax on gross income from a particular source, ascertained in the one case by reference to "sale value" as defined, and in the other case by reference to "appraised value" as defined. The use of artificial standards for the purpose of quantifying "income" is a familiar phenomenon, and does not necessarily deprive a tax on sums so calculated of its character as a tax on income: British Imperial Oil Co. Ltd. v. Commissioner of Taxation [2] . It is not however, necessary, in my opinion, to determine what would have been the proper category to which to refer the exactions in question if Acts Nos. 30 and31 had stood alone. The point is that the legislature has not by either Act unequivocally characterized the exaction. It appears indeed to have studiously avoided doing so. It does not call it a tax. It has refrained from using any of the familiar formulae for the imposition of taxes. It has, in my opinion, deliberately left the nature of the exaction in each case to be ascertained by reference to Act No. 29. And, when we refer to Act No. 29, we see, I think, that no special or independent character can be ascribed to those exactions as taxes. Acts Nos. 30 and31 do not (to adopt Mr. Adam's phrase) impose taxes "in their own right". Their provisions are ancillary or incidental to an imposition of taxation already effected by existing legislation and contemplated as continuing from year to year.

[65]

The true nature of the payment which the No. 1 Act and the No. 2 Act require a producer to make cannot be decided without regard to the provisions of the Administration Act, for it is clear on the face of all three Acts that together they form one entire scheme. The fact that the scheme is divided into separate enactments is indicative of nothing but the draftsman's resolve to minimise, if not to avoid, the risk of infringing s. 55 of the Constitution in case it should be held that taxation is imposed. The scheme must necessarily be considered as a whole, and its main features are these: (i) The amount to be paid by a producer to the Commonwealth is a proportion of the sale value (i.e., the sale price or the fair and reasonable value as determined under the Administration Act) of wool which he sells or otherwise disposes of otherwise than for delivery by him out of Australia, and a proportion of the appraised value of wool which he exports. (ii) The proportion in each case is such proportion as is fixed by the Parliament for the financial year in which the wool is sold or otherwise disposed of, or is exported. (iii) The payment may be made by the producer himself, or on his account by a person who receives an amount in excess of £20 in respect of wool sold by him on the producer's behalf or a person who purchases wool from the producer. (iv) Whichever be the method of payment, a wool-deduction certificate is to be delivered to the producer showing the amount of the payment. (v) The producer is to forward all wool-deduction certificates delivered to him, in respect of wool sold, disposed of or exported in a year of income, to the commissioner with his income-tax return in respect of that year of income. (vi) When the producer's income tax in respect of that year of income has been assessed, the commissioner is to credit the amount of any wool-deduction certificate received from the producer against the "net tax" (if any) payable by the producer in respect of the income of that year of income, and is to pay him the amount of any excess. ("The net tax" means the amount remaining after deducting, from the sum of the income tax assessed in respect of the producer's income of the year of income and the provisional tax (if any) payable in respect of his income of the next succeeding year of income, the provisional tax (if any) paid by him in respect of his income of the first-mentioned year of income.) (vii) Where the proportion for a financial year for the purposes of the No. 1 Act and the No. 2 Act is fixed after the commencement of that financial year and is less than the proportion fixed for the immediately preceding financial year, the commissioner is to refund to the producer so much of the amount previously paid by him or on his account as exceeds the amount which would have been payable if the proportion fixed had been fixed before the commencement of the year; and where the proportion is not fixed before the end of the financial year the commissioner is to refund to the producer the amount paid by him or on his account. (viii) All moneys received by the commissioner are to form part of the Consolidated Revenue Fund, and there shall be payable out of that Fund (which is appropriated accordingly) such amounts as the commissioner becomes liable to pay in accordance with the Act.

[67]

These considerations point towards the conclusion that the No. 1 Act and the No. 2 Act, operating in conjunction with the Administration Act, do not impose a tax of their own, but provide a method by which income tax and provisional tax are collected in advance of assessment. It may be conceded that the mere fact that the amounts which the Acts make payable are to be treated as satisfying, not only the producer's liability under the Acts, but also his liability for income tax and provisional tax, would not suffice without more to establish that those amounts are not taxes. Separate obligations to pay money to the Commonwealth may, no doubt, be so created that each of them is a tax, notwithstanding that a payment in respect of one is to operate as pro tanto satisfying the other, and even notwithstanding that any excess of one over the other is to be refunded. But it is not true to say that there are necessarily two taxes wherever the Parliament imposes upon a person two obligations to pay money to the Commonwealth for its general purposes otherwise than for services rendered. One obligation may be a tax while the other may be an auxiliary obligation created to facilitate collection of the tax. That that is the position in the present case seems to me to be the proper conclusion from the fact that, not only does the right to a refund of any excess arise immediately upon the assessment of a producer's income tax and provisional tax, but the payments to be made under the No. 1 Act and the No. 2 Act are payments of a proportion of a gross sum which in the normal course of events will enter as an ingredient into the calculation of the net sum upon which the income tax and provisional tax will be assessed. This is recognized and emphasized by s. 24 of the Administration Act, which provides that an amount paid or payable under the Act is not allowable as a deduction in ascertaining the taxable income of a person under the Income Tax Assessment Act. Thus a producer must bring his whole receipts from wool into his assessable income under the latter Act, and is to be assessed under that Act without regard to the payments he will have made under the Wool Sales Deduction Acts, these payments being treated, so far as not refundable, as advance payments of the taxes so assessed. The provisions of the Administration Act relating to crediting against "net tax" appear to me to be of the very essence of the scheme which the three Acts embody, and reveal that scheme as a means by which payments on account of income tax and provisional tax are made collectible at the moment when a producer so deals with his wool that, according to the ordinary run of cases, he becomes entitled to receive, then or later, moneys upon which, subject to deductions, those taxes will be levied.

[69]

In the first place it is pointed out on behalf of the plaintiffs that the amount made payable by a producer is an arbitrarily selected proportion of either the sale value or the appraised value of his wool, having no relation to the amount of tax he will be liable to pay in accordance with the Income Tax Assessment Act. It is said that a complete absence of any relation between the amount of a producer's liability under the Wool Sales Deduction Acts and the amount of his liability under the Income Tax Assessment Act is underlined by s. 12 of the Administration Act. That section gives the commissioner certain discretionary powers, exercisable if he is satisfied that the producer has suffered such a loss or is in such circumstances that the application of the Act would entail hardship upon him; but it confers no such powers if the commissioner is satisfied only that no income tax or provisional tax will be payable by the producer. It was also pointed out that the payment to be made under the Acts is a proportion of a gross amount, whereas income tax and provisional tax are assessed upon a net amount arrived at by making statutory deductions from gross income receipts. Considerations such as these, however, are by no means conclusive to show that the Acts do not in truth provide a means for the collection of income tax and provisional tax in advance of assessment. Any scheme for the collection, before assessment, of taxation as complicated in character as that for which the Income Tax Assessment Act provides must necessarily be more or less arbitrary, and must almost certainly result in the payment, by every person to whom it applies, of an amount different from the amount of tax he will ultimately be found liable to pay. Such a scheme must be framed on general lines, and therefore must fail to make adequate allowance for the circumstances of individual cases. The absence of any attempt to make the liability of an individual under the Acts approximate, even roughly, to his probable liability under the Income Tax Assessment Act is a natural consequence of the generality of their application and does not justify the conclusion that the Acts are not really laws with respect to the collection of income tax and provisional tax.

[70]

It was also said that the provisions for crediting payments made under the Acts against income tax and provisional tax do not show that the operation of the Acts is ancillary to taxation, because provisional tax is not yet imposed save in respect of the income of the year ending on 30th June 1951 (see Income Tax and Social Services Contribution Act 1950, s. 14), and it may not be imposed in respect of the income of subsequent years during which the Acts now in question may continue in force. The obligation of the Acts is therefore said to be imposed, not in respect of an actual tax liability provided for by the Parliament, but as an independent obligation which attaches whether or not a future tax liability is so provided for. This argument allows only for the case of a producer whose taxable income is constant, for the point of it is that such a producer can never have a liability for income tax as distinguished from provisional tax, against which his payments under the Acts can be credited (assuming that taxation rates do not arise), since the provisional tax he pays in each year will equal the income tax payable in respect of that year. One answer, however, is that the Acts operate in relation to a system established by the Income Tax Assessment Act under which annual Acts imposing provisional tax are contemplated. A law is not to be denied the character of a law in aid of the collection of a tax simply because the tax on account of which the collection is to be made has not yet been imposed, when the legislature has already set up the machinery for its imposition and has shown by statute that it contemplates and, indeed, intends to impose it. A second answer is that it cannot be assumed that the income of a wool producer will not increase from year to year, or that income-tax rates will not rise. If either event happens, the provisional tax paid by the producer in a given year will not satisfy his liability for income tax in respect of that year's income, and the payment made by him or on his account under the Wool Sales Deduction Acts will be available to meet the deficiency. Income tax is imposed by s. 13 of the Income Tax and Social Services Contribution Act 1950 (No. 49), at specified rates for the financial year which commenced on 1st July 1950 and (until superseded) for all financial years thereafter. Thus the collection of moneys under the Wool Sales Deduction Acts is incidental, not only to provisional tax not yet imposed, but to income tax already imposed.