Completed sales tax assessments cannot be reopened by retrospective clarification where binding precedent has already settled the classification issue.

A completed sales tax assessment could not be reopened by a show cause notice seeking to reclassify turnover at a higher rate, because the issue had already been covered by binding precedent and the assessment had been finalised. A retrospective clarification could not unsettle a concluded assessment, especially where the statutory entry remained unamended and the same reopening had previously been held without jurisdiction. The notice was quashed as unsustainable.

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Issues: Whether a show cause notice proposing to reopen a completed sales tax assessment and reclassify the turnover at a higher rate could be sustained when the issue was already covered by binding precedent and the assessment had been finalised.

Analysis: The assessment had been completed earlier and tax had been collected on that basis. The impugned notice sought to reopen the concluded assessment by relying on a subsequent clarification and by drawing support from the interpretation of an entry under a different enactment. The Court noted that an identical issue had already been decided against the Revenue, where similar reopening notices were held to be without jurisdiction. In tax matters, a clarification cannot be used retrospectively to unsettle completed assessments, particularly when the statutory entry remained unamended and the issue stood concluded by precedent.

Conclusion: The notice was held to be unsustainable and was quashed.

Ratio Decidendi: A completed tax assessment cannot be reopened through a retrospective clarification based on a different statutory interpretation when binding precedent has already held such reopening to be without jurisdiction.

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