Judgment

TS Sinnathuray J

1. In this appeal from a decision of the Valuation Review Board (the Board) the facts are not in dispute. The property, No 27, Third Avenue, is a new two-storey detached bungalow built in 1974. The owner (the respondent) purchased it from the developers, a private limited company. Under the contract of sale and purchase dated 4 December 1975 the developers were required to pay all out-goings including property tax up to the date of completion of purchase ie 31 March 1976.

2. Before the respondent entered into the contract, on 12 November 1975 her solicitors sent a requisition to the Property Tax Department, enquiring, inter alia, if all property tax on the property had been paid, and if not, the amount outstanding. The reply from the Department, on 27 November 1975 stated:

   No 27 Third Avenue, Singapore has not been included in the valuation list yet. Upon inclusion notice under s 18(2) will be issued and tax will be recovered under s 19 of the Property Tax Act.

3. On 17 May 1976 the chief assessor, under s 18(2) of the Property Tax Act (Cap 144) (the Act), issued a notice to the respondent proposing an annual value for the property of $32,400. It was accepted by the owner.

4. On the same day, the Comptroller of Property Tax (the appellant) also issued a notice to the respondent, under s 19A(1) of the Act. In the said notice, the respondent was required, under s 19 of the Act, to pay property tax for the property from 31 October 1974. This was the date given by the developers’ architect to the appellant as the date when the building was completed.

5. The temporary occupation licence of the premises, however, was issued by the chief building surveyor on 7 February 1975. Having regard to the decision of the Board, on 28 January 1977 in Haw Par International Ltd v Comptroller of Property Tax (VRB Ap 682/76) (unreported) that, as a general rule, the date of completion of the building is the date of the issue of the temporary occupation licence, the appellant amended the date of completion of the building from 31 October 1974 to 7 February 1975.

6. At the hearing before the Board, the respondent contended that she was liable for property tax only from the date of completion of the purchase of the property, ie 31 March 1976. It was submitted on her behalf that she was not liable for property tax before that date as she was not the owner then. For the appellant it was contended, as the respondent was the ‘ owner’ within the meaning of the Act, she was liable for the arrears of property tax due on the property for the period between the date of completion of the building and the date of purchase of the property. The Board held that the respondent was not so liable. In the grounds of decision the Board stated:

   In our judgment, s 19A does not contemplate a situation where ownership changes, thus entitling the Comptroller to make a demand of the new owner. The term ‘owner’in s 19A must therefore be taken to mean the ‘owner’ when the tax was due and payable.

7. The issue is whether the Board had erred in law in its interpretation of the word ‘owner’ in the Act, and, in holding that s 19A of the Act does not contemplate a situation where there is a change in the ownership of a property.

8. In the interpretation section, s 2 of the Act, the word ‘ owner’ is defined as follows:

   ‘owner’ means the person for the time being receiving the rent of the premises in connection with which the word is used whether on his own account or as agent or trustee for any other person or as receiver or who would receive the same if such premises were let to a tenant and includes the person whose name is entered in the valuation list, ....

9. Mrs Hangchi for the appellant submits that the legislature in using the expression ‘for the time being’ in reference to the ‘person .... receiving the rent’ clearly points to the present owner, that is to say, the person who ‘ at present’ or ‘now’, is receiving the rent. Counsel contends had the legislature intended the word ‘owner’ to mean the previous owner, it would not have used the expression ‘for the time being’. The argument is that the use of the words ‘for the time being’ in the definition anticipates a constant change in the ownership of property, and that with every change, it is the present owner who is the ‘ owner’ under the Act. It is her contention that to give any other meaning to the expression ‘ for the time being’ would undermine the whole scheme of the Act.

10. For the respondent, Mr Menon also invokes the intention of the legislature. His contention is that the expression ‘for the time being’ was deliberately inserted by the legislature to refer to the owner ‘at the relevant time’. He argues that if the legislature had intended to fix a person who is at present the owner of a property, then the legislature would have made this clear by leaving out the words ‘ for the time being’. Another submission is that the respondent does not come within any of the limbs of the definition of ‘ owner’ in the Act. In support of it, I am referred to the decision of the Board in Ong Poh Tan v Comptroller of Property Tax [1977] 1 MLJ xliii.

11. It appears from the submissions of counsel that the answer to the issue in this appeal lies in the construction of the phrase ‘ for the time being’ as used in the definition. I shall presently show that it is not so, but in deference to counsel who have given me copious written submissions I shall construe that phrase.

12. The phrase ‘for the time being’ according to its context, can mean ‘ the present time’ or denote ‘ a single period of time’ which counsel for the respondent described as ‘ at the relevant time’. Its general sense is that of time indefinite, and refers to an indefinite state of facts which will arise in the future, and which may (and probably will) vary from time to time (see Stroud’s Judicial Dictionary (4th Ed) Vol 5, p 2773). The ordinary meaning of the use of the phrase in its general sense is confirmed in standard dictionaries where it is given as ‘for the present’ or ‘at the moment’. The question is whether the phrase is used in its ordinary meaning in the definition of ‘owner’ in the Act.

13. Before I answer it, it is useful to refer to the decision of the House of Lords in Wankie Colliery Co v Inland Revenue Commissioners[1922] 2 AC 51. In this case the House considered the phrase ‘ any person for the time being owning or carrying on the trade or business’ in a taxing statute which imposed excess profits duty on such a person. A similar submission as is before me was raised for the appellants. The House rejected it. It is sufficient that I refer to a passage in the judgment of Lord Buckmaster at pp 57–58:

    It is plain from reading these words that the decision depends upon attributing the correct meaning to the phrase ‘any person for the time being owning or carrying on the trade or business’.... in its ordinary meaning ‘the person for the time being’ would, in my opinion, be the person who at the time of the assessment, carried on the trade or business .... These considerations lead me .... to the only conclusion that I can form in this matter, which is that the Legislature has deliberately designed to make the person at the time of assessment the person responsible for payment of the duty.

14. I now come back to the Act. It too is a taxing statute. The long title states that it is ‘An Act to provide for the levy of tax on immovable properties and to regulate the collection thereof’. For tax to be a charge on property (it is the first charge), and for the owner to be liable for it, the property and the owner must be included in the valuation list. ‘Owner’ as defined in the Act is given a legal meaning. One is ‘the person for the time being receiving the rent of the premises’. As every word in a statute must be given a meaning, the phrase ‘for the time being’ must be intended to add something to the concept in the expression ‘the person receiving the rent’. In my view the phrase is inserted in the Act to identify, to point to ‘the person receiving the rent’. The phrase must be given its ordinary meaning, the meaning given to it in its general sense. It means the person who at the time of the levy of tax is receiving the rent of the premises.

15. That, however, does not conclude the matter. On the facts the respondent is not the ‘owner’ of the property as ‘ the person for the time being receiving the rent of the premises’. She is the ‘owner’ of the premises as ‘the person whose name is included in the valuation list’. That is why I have said that construction of the phrase ‘ for the time being’ is not directly in issue before me.

16. Let me reduce to its elements the definition of ‘owner’ in the Act. It reads as follows:

    ‘Owner’ means – (a) the person for the time being receiving the rent of the premises .... (i) on his own accord, or (ii) as agent, or (iii) as trustee, or (iv) as receiver, or (v) as a hypothetical landlord who would receive rent, and (b) the person whose name is entered in the valuation list.

17. If that be right, as I think it must be, the phrase ‘for the time being’ applies only to (a) above where in each of the five cases a person is deemed to be ‘owner’ under the Act. The phrase has no application to (b) above where a person is ‘owner’ of the premises when his name is in the valuation list.

18. On the facts in this appeal, on 4 December 1975 the date of the contract of sale and purchase, the respondent’s premises, a new one, was not included in the valuation list. In answer to the requisition of the respondent’s solicitor, she was informed on 27 November 1975 that upon inclusion of the premises in the valuation list ‘Notice under s 18(2) will be issued and tax will be recoverable under s 19 of the Property Tax Act’. That notice was sent to her on 17 May 1976 making a proposal of an annual value of $32,400. She accepted the proposal and her premises was included in the 1976 valuation list. She is accordingly the ‘owner’ under limb (b) above of the definition of ‘Owner’.

19. I now come to the topic where the respondent was told that ‘tax will be recoverable’ under s 19 of the Act. The relevant provision in the section is sub-s (4). It provides as follows:

    Where any property is included for the first time in a valuation list for any year, the tax in respect of such property shall, notwithstanding that the property has not been included in any valuation list authenticated under this Act, be payable in the case of a building from the date of completion of such building and in the case of land from such date as may be determined by the Comptroller, but in none of these cases shall such tax be payable for more than six years prior to such inclusion. Such tax shall be calculated on the basis of the annual value ascribed to such property in such valuation list.

20. The collection of taxes under s 19 is under s 19A of the Act. Subsection (1) provides as follows:

    Where it appears to the Comptroller that any tax is payable in respect of any property pursuant to the provisions of s 19 of this Act, the Comptroller shall give notice thereof to the owner of the property concerned stating the amount of the tax due and the period for which such tax is payable.

21. As I have said, the Board held that ‘s 19A does not contemplate a situation where ownership changes, thus enabling, the Comptroller to make a demand on the new owner’. It concluded that ‘owner’ in the section ‘must be taken to mean the owner when tax was due and payable’. To arrive at this decision, the Board sought support from some sections in the Act. For reasons I give I say no more than to mention them. They are s 6(2) that ‘tax shall be payable half yearly in advance .... by the owner’; s 17 that the vendor or transferor must give notice to the chief assessor of the sale or transfer of the property; s 43, of the continuing liability of the transferor who has not given notice; and s 35, proceedings for recovery of arrears.

22. There is a rule of construction that to construe one part of a statute one may resort to another part of the same statute.

23. But this rule of construction is never allowed to alter the meaning of what is of itself clear and explicit; it is only when, as the court said in Palmer’s case, ‘any part of an act of parliament is penned obscurely and when other passages can elucidate that obscurity, that recourse ought to be had to such context for that purpose’; for as the judges said in the House of Lords in Warburton v Loveland,‘no rule of construction can require that when the words of one part of a stature convey a clear meaning it shall be necessary to introduce another part of a statute for the purpose of controlling or diminishing the efficacy of the first part.’ ‘It is not the duty of a court of law,’ said Selwyn LJ in Smith’s case, ‘to be astute to find out ways in which the object of an Act of the legislature may be defeated.’ (See Craies on Statute Law (7th Ed) pp 98 and 99.)

24. For these reasons, the sections I have mentioned cannot be used to construe what I consider to be the plain meaning of ‘ owner’ in s 19A of the Act. I can find no good reason for ‘ owner’ in s 19A to mean anything else than as defined in the Act. There is nothing in the context of s 19A to the contrary.

25. The respondent’s name was properly included in the 1976 valuation list. Under s 19A the Comptroller issued her a valid notice for tax payable on the premises as under s 19(1) tax was ‘payable from the date of completion of the work of erecting’ the premises. And under s 19(4), the Comptroller may collect back tax for six years. The facts in this appeal are materially different from the facts in Ong Poh Tan’s case. That case is to be distinguished from the present one, as unlike in that case, the respondent knew when she bought the premises that tax would be due on it when it is placed in the valuation list. The tax is a charge on the premises. The respondent is accordingly liable to pay the tax on the premises with effect from 7 February 1975.

26. The appeal is allowed. By consent, there will be no order as to costs.

Cases

Haw Par International Ltd v Comptroller of Property Tax Singapore (VRB Ap 682/76) (unreported)

Ong Poh Tan v Comptroller of Property Tax [1977] 1 MLJ x1iii

Wankie Colliery Co v IRC [1922] 2 AC 51

Legislations

Property Tax Act (Cap 144): s.2, s.18, s.19, s.19A

Representations

Lucy Hangchi (Inland Revenue) for the appellant.

TPB Menon (Oehlers & Chua) for the respondent.

Notes:-

This decision is also reported at [1981] 1 MLJ 272 & [1980-1981] SLR 474.