TaxTMI 
TaxTMI 
1994 (8) TMI 284
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.... and the dispute between the parties is about only one sum of Rs. 15,35,357 that according to the department might have been paid by the revisionist as excise duty on 1,00,800 bulk litres of rum. The question is whether the dealer suffered this sum of Rs. 15,35,357 by way of excise duty and if so whether the same should be included in its turnover. The aforesaid quantity of rum was exported by the dealer out of Uttar Pradesh and was supplied to the defence department. The rum supplied to defence department is exempt from excise duty but the department assumed that some rum might have been lost in transit on which the revisionist might have had to pay excise duty. While exporting rum out of the State of Uttar Pradesh for supply to defence....
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....e but to remand the case to the assessing officer for proper and exhaustive investigation on the subject and that if need be the excise authority may be summoned to confront whether any excise duty on rum was paid or not. The Tribunal further observed "that if no excise duty was paid, naturally, there would be no question of any addition but if some excise duty was paid as appears to be the case, it shall have to be added to the turnover". It was also contended before the Tribunal that this matter has become final between the parties and, therefore, could not be reagitated before the Tribunal. This contention was also negatived by the Tribunal. Learned counsel for the revisionist contended that the matter had become final and, therefo....
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.... the purchaser, i.e., the canteen stores department of the Government of India and that whether or not the revisionist was burdened with the aforesaid amount of excise duty was entirely irrelevant. This contention has force and it appears that the Tribunal misconstrued the decision of the honourable Supreme Court in the case of McDowell & Company Limited v. Commercial Tax Officer [1985] 59 STC 277; 1985 UPTC 747. That was a case in which the dealer had not paid the excise duty itself but had asked its customer to pay the same. The honourable Supreme Court held that excise duty was a burden on the dealer-manufacturer and simply because by a device the same was paid by the buyer it cannot be excluded from the turnover of the manufacturer. Thi....
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....haser to the dealer as consideration for the sale and not as to what is the net consideration retainable by the dealer. Take for example, excise duty payable by a dealer who is a manufacturer. When he sells goods manufactured by him, he always passes on the excise duty to the purchaser. Ordinarily, it is not shown as a separate item in the bill, but it is included in the price charged by him. The 'sale price' in such a case could be the entire price inclusive of excise duty because that would be the consideration payable by the purchaser for the sale of the goods. True, the excise duty component of the price would not be an addition to the coffers of the dealer, as it would go to reimburse him in respect of the excise duty already paid b....
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....ow the amount of consideration is made up. The honourable Supreme Court emphasised that the only relevant question to ask is as to what is the amount payable by the purchaser to the dealer as consideration for the sale and not as to what is the net consideration retainable by the dealer. Therefore, on the same analogy it is totally irrelevant as to what is the cost of goods to the selling dealer. What is relevant is only the price that he gets from the purchaser of the goods. In the case before us there does not seem to have ever been any doubt that the price of the aforesaid quantity of rum as paid to the dealer-revisionist by the canteen stores department was already included in its turnover. The department had right from the beginning....