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If he was called at home, O would give advice by phone, sometimes set out at once and at other times await further reports. He was responsible for his patient as soon as he received the telephone call. Although he received a payment for travelling expenses this was only for the last 10 of his 15 miles. O was assessed in respect of the payments received for the 10 miles and denied his claim for deduction in respect of the 5 miles. His appeal to the courts against this assessment was successful. Since he had two places where his duties were performed, the hospital and his residence with the telephone, the expenses of travel between the two places were deductible.26 Lord Wilberforce said that the job as actually constituted and the purpose for which he incurred the expenses differed greatly from Ricketts case.27 |
3. Taylor v Provan28 |
This case suggests that the personal qualifications of the taxpayer may sometimes supply the material to satisfy the objective test of necessity. The taxpayer (T) was a Canadian citizen living in Toronto. He was the acknowledged expert in the brewing world on successful expansion by means of amalgamation and merger. T did most of his work in connection with the English amalgamations in Canada and the Bahamas, but he made frequent visits to England. He had extensive Canadian interests for which he worked from his offices in Toronto and the Bahamas. He agreed to serve as director of brewing companies ‘for reasons of prestige’, although this had the unfortunate effect of bringing him within what are now TA 1988, sections 153, 154. T received no fees for his services since he regarded it as a business recreation, but his travelling expenses were reimbursed. The House of Lords held unanimously that the reimbursements were sums spent on behalf of the company and were taxable under TA 1988, section 153. The House held (by 3–2) that the expenses were deductible. Of the majority, Lord Morris 29and Lord Salmon30 held that the taxpayer’s duties were performed both in the UK and in Canada so that |