Transferee liability under sales tax law requires clear statutory language and cannot extend to tax under a repealed enactment.

A transferee of a business was not liable for tax assessed on the transferor under a repealed sales tax law where the transferee-liability provision was purely statutory and the repeal did not expressly create or preserve a new liability against the transferee. The later sales tax law also did not apply, because its transferee-liability rule operated only where the transferred business was liable to tax under that later Act, not where liability arose solely under the repealed enactment. The demand against the transferees therefore could not be sustained and the notices were set aside.

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Issues: (i) Whether a transferee who acquired the business after repeal of the earlier sales tax law could be made liable for tax assessed on the transferor under the repealed law. (ii) Whether the corresponding provision in the later sales tax law applied where the transferred business was not liable to tax under that later law.

Issue (i): Whether a transferee who acquired the business after repeal of the earlier sales tax law could be made liable for tax assessed on the transferor under the repealed law.

Analysis: Liability under the earlier enactment was an artificial liability created only by the specific transferee-liability provision. That liability could not attach to a transfer occurring after repeal unless some provision preserved or created liability on the transferee at the date of transfer. The saving clause preserved liabilities already accrued or incurred, but that saved the transferor's liability, not a new liability of the transferee in the absence of express statutory language.

Conclusion: The transferee was not liable under the repealed law.

Issue (ii): Whether the corresponding provision in the later sales tax law applied where the transferred business was not liable to tax under that later law.

Analysis: The later provision applied only when the ownership of a business liable to pay tax under the later Act was transferred. The definition of tax in that Act confined the liability to tax payable under that Act itself. Since the transferred business had no liability under the later law and was liable only under the repealed law, the later transferee-liability provision did not operate. In a taxing statute, any doubt is resolved in favour of the subject, but here the language was treated as clear.

Conclusion: The later transferee-liability provision did not apply.

Final Conclusion: The demand against the transferees could not be sustained, and the notices were set aside.

Ratio Decidendi: A transferee can be made liable for another's tax only where liability is expressly created or preserved by clear statutory language, and a provision limited to business liable under the later enactment cannot be extended to tax arising only under a repealed enactment.

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