Trade parlance controls classification of sweetening agents under a tax notification, extending exemption to saccharin sodium products.

A taxing notification is ordinarily construed in accordance with trade parlance, so terms are understood as traders and consumers use them unless the statute defines them differently. Although saccharin and saccharin sodium are chemically distinct, both function as sweetening agents and were commonly referred to in the market as saccharin. On that basis, the notification using the term saccharin was read in a generic sense, and products whose main component was saccharin sodium were treated as falling within its scope. The exemption was therefore available for those products.

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Issues: Whether products containing saccharin sodium, marketed as sweetening substitutes, were covered by Notification No. 53/84 applicable to saccharin.

Analysis: The interpretation of words in a taxing notification must ordinarily accord with the sense in which traders and consumers understand them, unless the statute provides a different definition. The material showed that saccharin and saccharin sodium are chemically distinct, but both are used as sweetening agents and are commonly referred to in trade parlance as saccharin. The notification was read as using saccharin in a generic sense, and the evidence accepted that the impugned products were preparations whose main component was saccharin sodium and that they were sold and understood in the market as saccharin.

Conclusion: The products were held to fall within the notification and the exemption was available.

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