Adams (Deputy Commissioner of Taxation (Cth)) v Rau & Anor
(1931) 46 CLR 572(1931) 5 ALJ 279
(1931) 38 ALR 87
(1931) 1 ATD 302
(Judgment by: Evatt J)
Between: Adams (Deputy Commissioner of Taxation (Cth)) - Informant/Applicant
And: Rau & Anor - Defendants/Respondents
Judges:
Duffy CJ
Starke J
Dixon J
McTiernan J
Evatt J
Judgment date: 3 December 1931
SYDNEY
Judgment by:
Evatt J
The respondents carry on business in Victoria as licensed shorthand writers. For a certain fee they attend Court proceedings and conferences by prior arrangement with interested parties, and they take down the notes in shorthand. They then transcribe their notes and furnish their clients, and (with their clients' consent) other parties, with typewritten records of the proceedings at a certain price per folio.
It is said that they are, in part at least, engaged in the manufacture or production of goods or commodities and that sec. 11 of the Commonwealth Sales Tax Assessment Act (No. 1) requires them to be registered as being a "manufacturer or wholesale merchant."
In my opinion the respondents are in nowise engaged in the manufacture or production of goods or commodities. Their transcripts come into existence as materials to be provided in the course of rendering skilled services. They do not "produce" or "manufacture," their transcripts are not accurately described as "goods" or "commodities," nor are they engaged in the business of selling transcripts.
The medical practitioner who provides the service of taking X-rays and furnishes copies of the skiagraph to the patient, although he causes a new thing or entity to come into existence, is not a producer of goods. Nor is the artist who makes an etching for a client and provides him with a dozen copies, a manufacturer of commodities.
The application for orders to review the decision of the magistrate should be dismissed with costs.