Change of opinion and rectification limits bar estate duty reassessment on already examined material and provisional tax allowances.

Reopening of an estate duty assessment was impermissible where the Department relied on the same partnership material already examined in the original assessment, because the reassessment amounted only to a change of opinion and not discovery of fresh information. A deceased partner's alleged share in post-death refunds and interest also could not sustain reopening on the same record. Excess allowance of tax liabilities, where initially allowed provisionally, was held to fall within rectification rather than reassessment under section 59 of the Estate Duty Act, absent special circumstances. The article states that reassessment cannot be used to replace rectification or revisit concluded issues on identical material.

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Issues: (i) whether reopening of the estate duty assessment on the deceased partner's share in the firm's accumulated profits was valid; (ii) whether the share in refunds and interest thereon could justify reopening; and (iii) whether excess allowance of tax liabilities could be corrected by reassessment under section 59 of the Estate Duty Act, 1953.

Issue (i): whether reopening of the estate duty assessment on the deceased partner's share in the firm's accumulated profits was valid.

Analysis: The material regarding the partnership reconstitution and the deceased's changing profit-sharing ratio was already available to the Department at the time of the original assessment. The original assessment had considered the partnership deed and the accountable person's objections. On those facts, the reassessment was founded only on a different view of the same material, which amounted to a change of opinion and not discovery of fresh information.

Conclusion: Reopening on this ground was not valid and was against the Revenue.

Issue (ii): whether the share in refunds and interest thereon could justify reopening.

Analysis: Refunds arising after death were held not to constitute property passing on death in the circumstances of the case. The reassessment did not rest on any new factual material, but on a reappraisal of the same position already considered. The same reasoning that negatived reopening on the profit-sharing issue also applied to the refund component.

Conclusion: Reopening on this ground was not valid and was against the Revenue.

Issue (iii): whether excess allowance of tax liabilities could be corrected by reassessment under section 59 of the Estate Duty Act, 1953.

Analysis: The assessment record showed that the tax liabilities had been allowed only provisionally and were liable to revision. If those liabilities were later found to have been allowed in excess because of subsequent developments in related assessments, the proper course was rectification, not reopening. The wider power of reassessment was not available in the absence of special circumstances warranting its invocation.

Conclusion: This ground also did not justify reopening and was against the Revenue.

Final Conclusion: The reassessment could not be sustained because the principal grounds invoked by the Department were either a mere change of opinion or matters falling within rectification, not reassessment. The dismissal of the Revenue's appeal followed.

Ratio Decidendi: Reopening of an assessment is impermissible when it is based on the same material already considered and amounts only to a change of opinion, and correction of an excessive allowance that is properly rectifiable cannot be converted into a reassessment absent special circumstances.

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