Salvage Profits
p. 63 · Read in the full issue
Under
Taxation Fire
AUSTRALIAN commercial specu lators, who entered gaily into the highly profitable war salvage business in New Guinea in the years immediately following 1945, and ex pected to avoid Australian income taxation on their profits by operating through companies registered in Papua-New Guinea (where there is no taxation of incomes) have been severely hit to leg by the Australian High Court.
The Australian taxation authori ties, on various grounds, claimed in come taxation from Australian resi dents in respect of these war salvage profits, and would not accept the con tentions regarding non-taxability of profits made in P-NG. The High Court, in two cases, found for the Tax Commissioner.
War Assets Pty. Ltd. (Messrs. P. F.
Cody, John Wren, A. M. Westhoven and A. E. Baker) will have to pay tax on £50,354 in 1947-48, and £28,413 in 1948-49. (See PIM of April, page 14). These profits were made from Milne Bay.
George James Bell, interested in salvage at Torokina, Bougainville, will have to pay tax on £ll,OOO. A company registered in Moresby had seven shareholders, of whom Bell was one; and each of the seven got a dividend of £ll,OOO. Bell, a resi dent of Australia, was adjudged to have received that sum as income.
There is no indication of what has happened to the other six share holders.