Bottling charges and turnover tax: separate bottle value was not established, so no additional tax could be fastened.

Bottling charges were not taxable as a separate component of turnover because the record did not establish a distinct sale price for the bottles or any implied contract for their sale. The excise-fixation covered bottles together with labels, caps, seals, packing and labour, and no material enabled the bottle price to be isolated on the facts. Although the Act taxed turnover from sale and amounts attributable to acts done in respect of sold goods could form part of turnover, that principle did not assist the assessing authority here. Later statutory changes dealing specifically with packing material were inapplicable to the relevant assessment year, so the appellate authority and Tribunal findings were left undisturbed.

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Issues: Whether bottling charges, treated by the assessing authority as the price of bottles used for selling exempt country liquor, were separately taxable as part of the dealer's turnover.

Analysis: The revision turned on whether the material on record established a distinct price of the bottles or any implied contract for their sale. The Court noted that the excise fixation covered not only bottles but also labels, caps, seals, packing and labour, and no separate material was available to isolate the bottle price. Under the Act, tax could be levied only on the turnover of sale, and the amount attributable to doing anything in respect of the goods sold ordinarily formed part of turnover. However, on the facts of the case, the bottle price could not be separately determined on the available record, and later statutory changes introducing specific tax treatment for packing material did not apply to the relevant assessment year.

Conclusion: The bottling charges could not be fastened with tax as the separate price of bottles, and the findings of the appellate authority and the Tribunal were not disturbed.

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