VAT return-filing threshold cannot include Central Sales Tax turnover absent express statutory authority.

Turnover taxable under the Tamil Nadu Value Added Tax Act, 2006 alone governs the return-filing threshold under Section 21 and Rule 7; Central Sales Tax turnover cannot be clubbed with it absent express statutory authority. The statutory scheme ties the filing date to the dealer's taxable turnover under the State Act, while the definition of taxable turnover and the deductions under Rule 8 operate only within that Act. The procedural overlap between the Tamil Nadu enactment and Central Sales Tax assessment does not permit merging the two turnovers for liability or filing-deadline purposes, so an assessment based on such clubbing is unsustainable.

---

---

Issues: Whether turnover under the Central Sales Tax Act, 1956 could be clubbed with turnover under the Tamil Nadu Value Added Tax Act, 2006 for determining the filing deadline under Section 21 read with Rule 7, and whether the impugned assessment levying interest on that basis was sustainable.

Analysis: Section 21 of the Tamil Nadu Value Added Tax Act, 2006 requires filing of returns showing total and taxable turnover in the prescribed manner, while Rule 7 of the Tamil Nadu Value Added Tax Rules, 2007 fixes the filing dates with reference to the dealer's taxable turnover in the preceding year. The expression "taxable turnover" is defined by Section 2(38) as turnover on which tax is payable after prescribed deductions from total turnover, and Rule 8 prescribes only limited deductions from total turnover. On a reading of the statutory scheme, the filing deadline under Rule 7 turns on turnover liable to tax under the Tamil Nadu Value Added Tax Act, 2006 and not on turnover under the Central Sales Tax Act, 1956. The overlap between the two enactments is only procedural, because the procedure under the Tamil Nadu enactment is followed for Central Sales Tax assessment purposes; it does not permit merging one turnover with the other for determining tax liability or the return-filing date. The assessment order was therefore unsustainable.

Conclusion: The inclusion of Central Sales Tax turnover for computing the Tamil Nadu Value Added Tax return-filing threshold was not permissible, and the impugned assessment was liable to be quashed in favour of the assessee.

Final Conclusion: The writ petition succeeded and the assessment based on clubbing the two turnovers could not be sustained.

Ratio Decidendi: For determining the return-filing threshold under the Tamil Nadu Value Added Tax Act, 2006, only turnover taxable under that Act can be considered, and turnover under the Central Sales Tax Act, 1956 cannot be clubbed with it absent an express statutory mandate.

---