Trustees carrying on business may be taxed as an association of individuals; trustee-liability provision does not exclude general charge.

Trustees who alone controlled and carried on a hotel business under a trust deed were held chargeable to income-tax as an association of individuals under the general charging provisions of the Income-tax Act, 1922. The court treated the phrase "other association of individuals" as wide enough to include trustees conducting a business and receiving its profits. Section 40 was held to be a machinery provision for special collection cases involving certain beneficiaries, and not a restriction on the general charging sections or a rule confining liability to beneficiaries alone.

---

---

Issues: Whether trustees carrying on the hotel business under the trust deed were chargeable to income-tax as an association of individuals under the charging provisions of the Income-tax Act, 1922, and whether section 40 confined liability to the beneficiaries alone.

Analysis: The trust deed vested the business in the trustees, who alone controlled and carried it on, while the beneficiaries had no role in its management. The charging provisions in sections 3 and 10 fastened tax on income from business carried on by an assessee, and the phrase "other association of individuals" was held wide enough to include a body of trustees formed to carry on a business. Section 40 was treated as a machinery provision for special cases where tax is collected through a trustee for beneficiaries who are minors, lunatics, idiots, or non-residents; it did not restrict the general charging provisions or prevent assessment of trustees where they themselves carried on the business and received its profits.

Conclusion: The trustees were rightly assessable as an association of individuals on the profits of the hotel business, and section 40 did not make the beneficiaries alone liable.

Ratio Decidendi: Where trustees carry on a business and receive its profits in their own control, they may be assessed under the general charging provisions as an association of individuals, and a trustee-liability provision enacted for special collection cases does not exclude such liability.

---