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1970 (9) TMI 97

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..... r as manufactured cycles taxable at 3 per cent.? (4) Whether the estimate of sales was justified ignoring the figure of purchase through Form 'C' with the Sales Tax Officer?" The assessee deals in cycles, cycle parts, tyres and tubes. It also assembles cycles from cycle parts and sells them. On 17th September, 1964, the Commissioner of Sales Tax issued a direction to the Sales Tax Officers that sales tax should be assessed on the turnover of assembled cycles. Proceedings under rule 41(5) of the U.P. Sales Tax Rules were taken against the assessee for the assessment year 1960-61. The assessee objected to the proceedings on the ground that they were barred by time, but the plea was rejected by the Sales Tax Officer, who made an assessment .....

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..... emained in operation for four months and eight days. The case of the assessee before the sales tax authorities was that the period of limitation for completing the assessment proceeding for the assessment year 1960-61 expired on 31st March, 1965, and, therefore, the assessment order was barred by limitation. Reliance was placed on section 21(2) of the U.P. Sales Tax Act which provides that no assessment order shall be made for any assessment year after the expiry of four years from the end of such year. The sales tax department, in reply, referred to the explanation to section 21(2), which provides that where the assessment proceeding remained stayed under the orders of any civil or any other competent court the period during which the proc .....

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..... order of this court enured and that, therefore, the assessment order for the year 1960-61 must be held to be within time. The first and the second questions are answered accordingly. We may note a submission made on behalf of the assessee at this stage in respect of the second question. It is pointed out that the direction issued by the Commissioner of Sales Tax was made in respect of the turnover of assembled cycles only, and while it may be that the sales tax department was entitled to the benefit of the period during which the stay order remained in force so far as the turnover of assembled cycles was concerned, that benefit was not available to it in the matter of assessing the turnover of imported cycles, tubes and tyres. This point .....

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..... o satisfy the word." So Bray, J., in McNicol v. Pinch[1906] 2 K.B. 352., said that to manufacture a thing is to "bring it into being". And proceeding further, Darling, J., in the same case observed: "The essence of making or of manufacturing is that what is made shall be a different thing from that out of which it is made." Ruling case law covers a wide variety of cases where different illustrations have been discussed. Upon a review of those cases they appear to turn largely on the question whether the article said to be manufactured is of a different description from the original components both commercially and from the point of view of the consumer. This test was applied by Dixon, J., in Federal Commissioner of Taxation v. Jack Zina .....

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..... t is made, in the sense that the thing produced is by itself commercial commodity which is capable as such of being sold or supplied. It does not mean that the materials with which the thing is manufactured must necessarily lose their identity or become transformed in their basic or essential properties." He added that it was not necessary that "manufacture" should connote production on a large scale. The same view was taken in State of Bihar v. Chrestien Mica Industries Ltd.[1956] 7 S.T.C. 626., where the Patna High Court, considering a provision of the Bihar Sales Tax Act, emphasised: "The essential point to remember is that something is brought into existence which is different from that originally existing, in the sense that the thi .....

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..... eing. The unassembled components cannot be put to the use to which a cycle can. The process of assembly produces, to use the felicitous language of Dixon, J., in Jack Zinader Pty. Ltd.[1949] 78 C.L.R. 336. , a different entity having a new identity. That is so, although the original parts are still identifiable and have not lost their basic or essential properties. The process of assembly is as much a part of the manufacturing process as the production of the components. It may be the end process, but nevertheless essential to the completion of the commercial commodity. In our opinion, assembled cycles are liable to be treated as "manufactured" cycles and are, therefore, taxable at 3 per cent. The third question is answered accordingly. T .....

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