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TMI Blog1958 (10) TMI 4X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... 2,41,103-11-3, to the credit of an account which he got the appellant to open in his name in the same bank. Thereafter, from time to time Levy put in further sums into the appellant's aforesaid account in Lloyd's Bank, Bombay. It appears that the payments so made up to August 19, 1951, amounted to about Rs. 4,50,000. From time to time the appellant got moneys transferred from his account at the Lloyd's Bank, Bombay, to his account in a bank at Trivandrum in Travancore. This appeal arises out of orders for assessment to income-tax passed against the appellant for the assessment years 1122, 1123 and 1124, all according to the Malayalam era. The respective accounting periods according to the Gregorian calendar were from August 17, 1945, to August 16, 1946, August 17, 1946, to August 16, 1947, and August 17, 1947, to August 16, 1948. It appears that during these periods Levy had deposited in the appellant's account at Lloyd's Bank in Bombay the following respective sums: Rs. 13,304, Rs. 29,948 and Rs. 19,983. During the same periods the appellant had obtained transfers of the following respective sums from his Bombay account to his Trivandrum account : Rs. 81,200, Rs. 47,000 and Rs. ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... case involves really two points. First, was the appellant carrying on a vocation ? And secondly, if he was, can the amounts with which we are concerned, be said to be profits or gains of the vocation ? We agree with his view of the case and proceed to discuss these points. The first question is, whether the appellant was carrying on a vocation. Under section 10 of the Income-tax Act, 1922, tax is payable by an assessee in respect of the profit or gains of any profession or vocation carried on by him. The facts found are that the appellant was studying Vedanta philosophy himself and imparting the knowledge acquired by him as a result of his studies to such as cared to come and imbibe it. There is no evidence to show that the appellant had made it a condition that he would impart such knowledge only to those who were prepared to pay for it. We have, therefore, to proceed on the basis that the appellant was teaching his disciples Vedanta without any motive or intention of making a profit out of such activity. We find no difficulty in thinking that teaching is a vocation if not a profession. It is plainly so and it is not necessary to discuss the various meanings of the word "voca ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... or vocation. If any business, profession or vocation in fact produces an income, that is taxable income and none the less because it was carried on without the motive of producing any income. This, we believe, is too well established on the authorities now to be questioned. It was decided as early as 1888 in the case of Commissioners of Inland Revenue v. Incorporated Council of Law Reporting and followed ever since, that "it is not essential to the carrying on of trade that the people carrying it on should make a profit, nor is it even necessary to the carrying on of trade that the people carrying it on should desire or wish to make a profit". If that were not so, a person carrying on what otherwise would be a business, may say that he did not carry on a business because it was not his intention to make any income out of it. That would, of course, be absurd. The question is, whether the activity has actually produced an income and it matters not whether that activity is called by the name of business, profession, vocation or by any other name or with what intention it was carried on. The observation of Rowlatt, J., in Stedeford v. Beloe, to which we were referred by Mr. Sastri, th ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... office ; if it does it does not matter whether it was voluntary or whether it was compulsory on the part of the persons who paid it. That seems to me to be the test ; and if we once get to this--that the money has come to, or accrued to, a person by virtue of his office--it seems to me that the liability to income-tax is not negatived merely by reason of the fact that there was no legal obligation on the part of the persons who contributed the money to pay it. " It is well established that in cases of this kind the real question is, as Rowlatt, J., put it in Reed v. Seymour : " But is it in the nature of a personal gift or is it a remuneration ? ", an observation which was quoted with approval by Viscount Cave, L.C., when the case went up to the House of Lords with the addition " If the latter, it is subject to the tax ; if the former, it is not " : see Seymour v. Reed. We find it impossible to hold in this case that the payments to the appellant had not been made in consideration of the teaching imparted by him. Levy admitted that he had received benefit from the teaching of the appellant. It is plain to us that it was because of the teaching that the gift had been made. It is t ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X
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