Trustpower Limited v Commissioner of Inland Revenue - SC 74/2015

A The application for leave to appeal is granted (CIR v Trustpower [2015] NZCA 253).
B The approved questions are:(a) was the Court of Appeal wrong to consider the ground of reassessment set out in the Reassessment letter as irrelevant, or was the Court otherwise acting outside its jurisdiction in determining the appeal?  If not, was the Court of Appeal correct in its conclusions on s DA 1?(b)  Despite stating that it proceeded on the basis of accepting the High Court’s findings of fact, were any aspects of the Court of Appeal’s judgment based on findings for which there was no evidence before the Court and/or that was contradicted by the evidence before the Court?  If so, what is the significance of this?(c )  What is the correct approach to determining whether the expenditure of the type at issue in this proceeding has been incurred on revenue or capital account, for the purposes of s DA 2(1) of the Act?(d)  Was the Commissioner correct, or at least not in error, to select the date by which the applicant had decided to apply for a resource consent as the point at which its expenditure was sufficiently connected to the capital purpose of obtaining a resource consent to be on capital account?
11 September 2015
_______________________
A The appeal is dismissed.
B Trustpower is to pay the Commissioner costs of $45,000 and reasonable disbursements to be fixed by the Registrar.
27 July 2016