TaxTMI 
TaxTMI 
1977 (8) TMI 151
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....Officer dated 10th December, 1973. 2.. The petitioner deals in industrial gas. While assessing his turnover for the year 1970-71, i.e., from 1st April, 1970, to 31st March, 1971, the Assistant Sales Tax Officer (who will hereinafter be referred to as the assessing authority) included Rs. 8,223.30 purporting to be the forwarding charges in the sale price and charged sales tax over it. The petitioner had a right to go in appeal against this order under section 38(1) of the M.P. General Sales Tax Act, 1958 (which will hereinafter be referred to as the Act). He had also the remedy by way of second appeal to the Board of Revenue under section 38(2) of the Act and, if he was aggrieved by the order passed by the Board, he could have got the cas....
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.... of freight or delivery or the cost of installation when such cost is separately charged and the expression 'purchase price' shall be construed accordingly;..........." 5.. The contention of the learned counsel for the petitioner is that the sum charged by the dealer represents the cost of delivery of the gas cylinder and has been shown separately in the bills and, consequently, it cannot come within the definition of the term "sale price". In support of this argument, learned counsel has placed sole reliance on the fact that forwarding charges have been shown separately in the bills by the dealer and, therefore, in the absence of evidence to the contrary, it must be presumed, according to the learned counsel, that the forwarding charges....
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....rred for freight and packing and delivery charges prior to the sale. It was observed that rule 9(f) seeks to exclude only those charges which are incurred by the dealer either expressly or by necessary implication for and on behalf of the purchaser after the sale when the dealer undertakes to transport the goods and to deliver the same or when the expenditure is incurred as an incident of sale. It is not intended to exclude from the taxable turnover any component of the price, expenditure incurred by the dealer which he had to incur before sale and to make the goods available to the intending customer at the place of sale. 8.. Now, in the present case, it appears that the forwarding charges were incurred by the dealer before sale and to ....
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....termining factor is not the terms in which the bill is made but the terms of the actual contract between the parties. This authority, therefore, negatives the argument of the learned counsel for the petitioner that the bill in the present case is sufficient for drawing an inference that the forwarding charges did not form part of the price. In our opinion, it was incumbent upon the assessee to have proved the terms of the contract between him and his consumers. As already pointed out above, the assessee failed to do so, and the finding to which the assessing authority and the Divisional Deputy Commissioner have come is that the forwarding charges did constitute part of the sale price. 10.. In our view, the two Supreme Court authorities r....