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If revenue is derived from selling grave spaces in a cemetery the resulting profit is chargeable as trading income whether or not the seller undertakes to maintain the graves.

In Edinburgh Southern Cemetery Co¹, the company existed for the purpose of providing a cemetery, and it purchased an area of land which was vested in trustees in trust for the members of the company and for those who might become proprietors of burial places, tombs or graves in the cemetery. The company's revenue was obtained mainly from the sale of lairs or rights of burial, but the company also received fees for funerals and for certificates for dressing the grounds and other services. It was held that the company was carrying on a business and that the profit was assessable to tax. The court also decided that the company could not deduct, in computing its profits, the estimated cost price of each grave space sold, for such a deduction was in respect of the exhaustion of a capital asset. However, by what is now ITTOIA 2005, ss 169–172