Expenditure-tax liability of deceased's estate extends to pre-commencement deaths through legal representatives.

Section 18 of the Expenditure-tax Act, 1957 was interpreted as applying to the estate of a person who died before the Act commenced, because it created machinery to assess and recover expenditure-tax through the executor, administrator or other legal representative. The charging scheme taxed expenditure incurred in the previous year, and the liability declared by section 18 was not limited to deaths after commencement. The Act's provisions were read as extending assessment and recovery to the deceased's estate, and the analogy to section 24B(1) of the Indian Income-tax Act, 1922 did not justify a narrower construction.

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Issues: Whether section 18 of the Expenditure-tax Act, 1957 rendered the estate of a person who died before the Act came into force liable to expenditure-tax and enabled assessment and recovery through the legal representatives.

Analysis: The charging provision imposed expenditure-tax on expenditure incurred in the previous year, while section 18 declared the liability of a deceased person's estate and provided machinery for assessment and recovery through the executor, administrator or other legal representative. The language of section 18 was held not to be confined to deaths occurring after commencement of the Act. By applying the scheme of sections 13, 14 and 15 to legal representatives, Parliament had provided the necessary machinery to assess and collect tax from the estate of a person who died before the Act began to operate. The analogy drawn from section 24B(1) of the Indian Income-tax Act, 1922 did not support restricting section 18 to future deaths.

Conclusion: Section 18 did render the estate of a person who died before the Act came into force liable to expenditure-tax, and the respondents were not entitled to resist assessment on that ground.

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