Wilkinson, R (on the application of) v. Inland Revenue

Facts

After his wife died, Mr Wilkinson claimed the widow's bereavement allowance under s.262 of the Income and Corporation Taxes Act 1988, which gave a tax allowance to a widow in the year of her husband's death and the following year. The Revenue refused because the allowance was available only to widows. It was accepted that the difference in treatment of widowers was discriminatory contrary to Article 14 with Article 1 of the First Protocol ECHR, and the allowance was abolished for the future by the Finance Act 1999. He sought judicial review.

History

His claim for judicial review failed at first instance and the Court of Appeal dismissed his appeal; he appealed to the House of Lords.

Issue

(1) Whether s.262 could be read under s.3 of the Human Rights Act 1998 as conferring the allowance on widowers. (2) Whether the Commissioners, under their statutory power of care and management of the tax system, could and should have granted widowers an equivalent concession, so that their failure was unlawful under s.6 and sounded in damages.

Held

Appeal dismissed. Section 262 could not be read compatibly, the Commissioners had no power to concede the allowance to widowers, and their refusal was therefore protected by s.6(2) of the Human Rights Act 1998.

Ratio

• Section 3 does not permit a court to give a statutory word a meaning that it cannot bear in its context; a provision conferring a benefit on widows cannot be read as conferring it on widowers, since that would contradict the clear meaning of the legislation rather than interpret it.
• The statutory power of care and management of taxes confers a managerial discretion in collecting tax but does not authorise the Revenue to grant, by concession, an allowance that Parliament has chosen not to provide; where the authority could not have acted differently because of primary legislation, s.6(2) excludes liability.

The judgments

Key reasoning

• Ghaidan v Godin-Mendoza [2004] UKHL 30 shows s.3 can require departure from the unambiguous meaning of words, but not an interpretation inconsistent with a fundamental feature of the legislation; confining the allowance to women was such a feature.
• The allowance was a deliberate statutory choice, so the gap could not be filled by reading in words or by executive concession.
• Extra-statutory concessions under the care and management power are justified only as pragmatic incidents of administering tax, not as a means of altering the scope of reliefs enacted by Parliament.
• Because the Revenue was required by primary legislation to act as it did, its conduct fell within s.6(2), and no damages under s.8 could be awarded.

Where it fits in the module

In the section 3 topic the case is read with Ghaidan and Re S (Care Order) to locate the boundary between interpretation and legislation. It also shows the interaction of ss.3, 4 and 6: where legislation cannot be read compatibly, a public authority applying it is protected, and the remedy, if any, is a declaration and Parliamentary amendment. The use of the care and management power raises wider questions about executive discretion and parliamentary control of taxation.

Criticisms

• The distinction between reading words in, as in Ghaidan, and refusing to read widow as surviving spouse is thin, and suggests the limits of s.3 are as much a matter of judicial choice as linguistic necessity.
• The outcome left a person suffering admitted discrimination without any remedy, since the discriminatory allowance had already been abolished and no declaration would help him.
• Conversely, allowing the Revenue to extend tax reliefs by concession would undermine the principle that taxation and its reliefs are for Parliament, so the result can be defended on constitutional grounds.