TaxTMI 
TaxTMI 
1961 (3) TMI 106
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....ax Act the appellant paid certain sums by way of entertainment tax in respect of the five annas ticket sold by him between the period 15th August 1949 to 18th October 1953. The amount paid was at the rate of one anna per five annas ticket. The appellant later on discovered as a result of a communication received from the Assistant Commercial Tax Officer that the tax due on a ticket of the gross value of five annas was only nine pies, and not one anna, and alleging that he had paid a sum of Rs. 17,252-7-0 by way of excess tax under a mistake of law, filed the suit for recovery of that sum from the Government 2a. The suit was contested substantially on three grounds, (1) that the payment made to the Government was not the money of the appella....
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....ecified above on each payment of admission, after excluding from such payment the amount of the tax" (the rest of the section is omitted as unnecessary). Section 7(1) states: "The entertainments tax shall be levied in respect of each person admitted on payment, and shall be calculated and paid on the number of admissions." Sub-clause (2) states: "The entertainments tax shall be due and be recoverable from the proprietor." It will be seen that under the provisions extracted above the management of a cinema for example is made the collecting agent for the tax. The amount so collected is a tax on the individual attending the entertainment. It being a tax will be due to the Government and not to the proprietor o....
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.... for the entertainments tax. It was this amount that was paid by the appellant to the respondent. The amount so collected from the persons who attended the cinema was for paying it over as entertainments tax to the Government. If that amount was in excess of what was legally due, namely, three pies on each ticket, the excess would belong to the individual who had paid the money and not to the appellant, who merely collected the money on behalf of the State. 6. The management of a cinema is made by the statute an agent as it were for the collection of the entertainment tax; once the collection was made and the amount paid to the Government, the agency would cease. The agent himself would have no interest in the amount collected and pai....
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.... Act in Velayudhan v. Agricultural Income-tax and Sales-tax Officer, Perumbavoor, 1953-4 S.T.C. 338 r (AIR 1953 Trav-Co 618). Subramania Iyer J. while considering the question whether a tax realised by a dealer from his customer could be included in the dealer's turnover thereby subjecting it to further tax observed, "The sales-tax collected by the petitioner is immune from the levy of any sales-tax as the collection was made by him for and on behalf of the State and his obligation was to make it over to the State on whose behalf he made the collection."' This view was affirmed in Agricultural Income-tax and Rural Sales-tax Officer Perumbavoor v. Velayudhan, (1954) 5 S. T. C. 285. In K. M. Kunju v. State of Travaucore Cochin, 1954-5....