Inland Revenue Commissioners v City of Glasgow Police Athletic Association
[1953] 1 All ER 747(Judgment by: Lord Oaksey)
Inland Revenue Commissioners
v City of Glasgow Police Athletic Association
Judges:
Lord Normand
Lord OakseyLord Morton of Henryton
Lord Reid
Lord Cohen
Judgment date: 9 March 1953
Judgment by:
Lord Oaksey
My Lords, I agree with what has been said by the noble Lord on the Woolsack as to the function of the Court of Session in tax cases. On the merits of the appeal I have had much difficulty and have come to the conclusion that the appeal ought to be dismissed. In my opinion, the efficiency of a police force is largely dependent on the activity and physical fitness of its members, and athletic and other sports ought to be and are encouraged by those responsible for such forces. It is clear, too, that the efficiency of the police is a matter of public importance which falls within the class of charitable purposes to which the exemption in the Finance Act, 1921, s 30, applies. The question then is whether the City of Glasgow Police Athletic Association is a body of persons established for public charitable purposes only.
Now, it is clear that "purposes" are not the same as "results" and there is ample authority that a body of persons or trust may be established for charitable purposes only although its establishment has results which are not charitable, for instance, the benefits derived by the officers in the cases of Re Good , in Re Gray , and by the surgeons in the Royal College of Surgeons of England v National Provincial Bank Ltd . As Lord Macnaghten said in Inland Revenue Comrs v Forrest (15 App Cas 354):
"It cannot I think be doubted that the institution has raised the standard of the profession, and that to a civil engineer it is of advantage and probably of pecuniary advantage to be a member. But is that result the purpose of the society, or is it an incidental, though an important and perhaps a necessary consequence of the way in which the institution does its work in the pursuit of science?"
The purposes for which a body of persons is established can only be discovered from the constitutional document, if there is one, which establishes the body. In the present case, in my opinion, the constitution and general rules of the respondents indicate that the purpose of the body was the efficiency of the force. There can, in my opinion, have been no other reason for r 23 which makes every resolution and decision subject to the approval of the chief constable. The chief constable is only concerned with the amusement of his men for the purpose of having a contented and efficient force. All the rules are framed to meet the needs of a disciplined force. It is, in my opinion, impossible to imagine that such rules would have been drawn up by anyone or by any body of men who were not intending to promote discipline. Decisions are not confided to the majority or even to a unanimous vote, but to the chief constable. It is true that no one need belong to the association, but that is equally consistent with it being the view of the chief constable or other authority who devised the scheme, which was originally compulsory, that a voluntary scheme was from its nature more likely to create the keenness and esprit de corps which have the necessary result of efficiency. The matters to which I have referred are all found as facts by the commissioners in the Special Case.
It has been argued for the Crown that the association is nothing but a club or mutual society for the benefit of the subscribers, but, in my opinion, the chief constable's veto is absolutely inconsistent with any such idea. It is true that the money subscribed comes from the members and is used for their immediate benefit, and it is argued that this negatives the idea of any public charitable purpose, but, in my opinion, it is not any more a necessary inference that the purpose of the members was their own enjoyment than that their purpose was their own efficiency. The purposes of a body of persons can only be inferred from the facts as to their association as a body; some may have one purpose, others another; but when they all submit themselves to the dictation of their commanding officer it appears to me that the reasonable inference is that they are prepared to subordinate their private purpose to his and that his purpose must be inferred to be the efficiency of the force and not its amusement.