TMI Blog1982 (3) TMI 6X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... bunal dismissed the departmental appeal. On being moved by the Department, however, the Tribunal stated a case referring the following question of law for our decision: " Whether, on the facts and in the circumstances of the case, the Appellate Tribunal was right in law in holding and had valid materials to hold that the presents amounting to Rs. 19,244 received from the constituents of the assessee would not constitute income liable to tax ?" Before us, the Department's endeavour was to sustain their stand that the presents which were received at the Grahapravesam were taxable income in the assessee's hands. Quite plainly, the basis of the assessment in this case is to regard presents and gifts of money as receipts of an income character in the hands of the assessee. To those who view income as something earned (and, often, as something hard earned with the sweat of one's brow), gifts are the very opposite of income. For, gifts are mere windfalls. Even " unearned " income, despite the snide remark, bears no resemblance to a gift. On the contrary, unearned income, in much the same way as earned income, comes to the owner as a receipt from a definite source, and it also pos ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... sics in this genre. Vicars of the Church of England, for instance, were held taxable on the offerings which they received from the faithful during Easter. Taxi drivers were held liable to pay income-tax on what they received as tips from passengers, although payment by them of their regular fares had to be accounted for to the vehicle owners. So too were the cases of huntsmen or gamekeepers who received occasional presents from their patrons. Professional cricketers too were not spared. Collections in their honour from testimonial matches were regarded, not as presents from an admiring crowd, but as part of their taxable earnings. These English examples produced significant decisions in our own country. A Vedantin, who was not the head of any religious order, was held properly charged to income-tax when in expatriate Londoner made handsome cash presents to him. It was said in justification that this generous soul from the Occident was known to have sat at the feet of the master. In another reported case, a lawyer who got a proxy and made speech at a company meeting, in an all too rare appearance before a corporate audience, was regarded as having earned a fee for rendering foren ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... ecessary incident of, the recipient's business. Whether this is so or not in any given case would depend upon ever so many considerations, such, for instance, as the nature of the business, the relationship between the giver of the gift and the recipient, and various other attendant circumstances. A man may remain in business either out of choice or by compulsion of circumstances. Being in business, he may accept a gift under a variety of impulses. It is not enough, therefore, that the hand that receives the gift is the hand of a person who bears the character of a businessman. The recorded instances in which courts have persuaded themselves to hold that voluntary payments are taxable in the recipient's hands as income are cases where the learned judges were struck by the presence of one or other of the factors which, in their opinion, showed a nexus between the taxpayer's business or profession and the gifts in question. In some cases the courts assigned importance to the recurrence or the possibility of recurrence of the transaction. In some cases, they paid regard to the nature of the assessee's calling. In some other cases, they went into the particular terms under which the ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... in-trade. This may be so. But even in the case of a Marwari money-lender or Multani banker, it would be a rationalisation of our pure prejudice against that class of people to assume that they are incapable of handling money otherwise than as stock-in-trade in the way of pawn-broking, money-lending and the like. We should not forget that the money-lender has a family, the same way as we have, and as Shakespeare reminded us through his character, Shylock, " even a money-lender will bleed if you prick him ". A money-lender is not incapable of handling money in ways other than stock-in-trade as when he might give pin-money to his wife, or pocket money to his school-going children, or drop a few coins or a wad of currency notes to a temple charity. We have no doubt whatever that money-lender is not constitutionally incapable of receiving a gift of money as graciously as it is given and as well as any of us in any other walk of life can do. We must protest against the bad habit of baiting a money-lender or any other kind of businessman or treating him as a second class citizen and taxpayer. The Tribunal in their order dealt with these aspects, but in their own manner, mildly and not ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X
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