Deemed income cannot be taxed twice where a statute already includes the wife's firm income in the husband's assessment.

A fiscal statute that deems a wife's share of firm income to form part of the husband's total agricultural income cannot support a second assessment of the same income in the wife's hands under the same enactment unless the legislature clearly authorises double taxation. The text explains that the statutory fiction operated to include that income in the husband's assessment, while the exemption provision could not be used as a basis for a fresh levy. It also states that taxing provisions should be construed to avoid an unfair and unreasonable result where the statute is silent on repeated taxation.

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Issues: Whether a wife's share of income from a firm in which her husband is also a partner can be assessed again in her hands under the Kerala Agricultural Income-tax Act, 1950, after the same income has already been included in and taxed as part of the husband's income.

Analysis: Section 9(2)(a)(i) created a statutory fiction by including the wife's share income from such a firm in the husband's total agricultural income. Once the Act treated that income as part of the husband's income for assessment purposes, the same income could not be regarded as still remaining taxable in the wife's hands under the same enactment. Section 10(1)(d) was an exemption provision and could not be used as the basis for imposing a second assessment. The Act did not disclose a clear legislative intention to permit double taxation of the identical income, and taxing provisions had to be construed to avoid an unfair and unreasonable result where possible.

Conclusion: The second assessment on the wife's share income was without jurisdiction and could not be sustained; the challenge succeeded in favour of the assessee.

Final Conclusion: The impugned assessments were quashed, and it was declared that the petitioners were not liable to be assessed again on the same share income already taxed in their husbands' hands under the same Act.

Ratio Decidendi: Where a fiscal statute deems a wife's share income to form part of the husband's total income and taxes it accordingly, the same income cannot be subjected to a second assessment in the wife's hands under the same enactment absent a clear legislative mandate for double taxation.

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