Sales tax liability arises on crossing the taxable quantum, and a time-barred reassessment does not erase that finding.

Liability to sales tax under the charging provision arises automatically when the dealer's gross turnover exceeds the taxable quantum, and no separate order determining liability is required before assessment. A finding that the taxable quantum was crossed on a particular date can therefore be relied on in a later assessment year. Quashing of an earlier reassessment as time-barred does not wipe out that factual determination or prevent it from being used in subsequent assessment proceedings. The assessment machinery under the relevant provisions operates on the statutory liability once the charging event has occurred, so the later assessment could be sustained without a fresh determination of liability.

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Issues: Whether quashing of the reassessment for an earlier year as time-barred necessarily nullified the finding that the dealer had become liable to pay tax in that earlier year, so that liability had to be freshly determined in the subsequent assessment year before assessment could be made.

Analysis: Section 4(2) of the Bengal Finance (Sales Tax) Act, 1941 made liability depend on the dealer's gross turnover exceeding the taxable quantum, and the liability arose by force of the statute two months after that event. The Act did not require a separate order determining liability as a precondition to assessment. Once the factual finding was reached that the taxable quantum had been crossed on a particular date, that finding could be used while making assessment for the later year. The fact that reassessment for the earlier year was quashed on limitation did not erase the factual determination that the liability had arisen. The assessment machinery under sections 7, 10(2), 11 and 11-A operated on that statutory liability.

Conclusion: The question was answered against the dealer. The earlier time-barred reassessment did not require a fresh determination of liability for the subsequent year, and the assessment for the later year was rightly sustained.

Ratio Decidendi: Liability to sales tax arises under the charging provision when the taxable quantum is in fact exceeded, and a later assessment may rely on that statutory event even if an earlier reassessment for the same factual period is set aside as time-barred.

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