The Income-Tax Act, 1961, allows set-off and carry-forward of the loss incurred by any assessee subject to some restrictions Apart from other information, the new income-tax forms, ITR-1 to ITR-8, notified by the Central government seeks details on set-off of losses. Now almost every assessee has to give this information. Therefore, one has to be aware of the exact provisions relating to set-off. Otherwise there is every possibility of claiming incorrect set-off.

Latest Advance Ruling may impact billion-dollar Vodafone takeover case; Capital gains – Transfer of shares between two non-resident entities abroad – Since situs of income is located here, it is taxable in India. TAXING capital gains has always been a tricky subject for the Revenue. If it ever involved two non-resident entities, it always proved to be a much trickier and harder nut to crack. Then came the insertion of the most crucial clause in the statute – the situs of the capital asset, a step to iron out the hiatus in the relevant provisions of the Income Tax Act. This was designed to take care of the transactions between two non-residents over the capital assets situated in India.

Section 271B, read with section 44AB, of the Income-tax, 1961 – Penalty – For failure to get accounts audited – Assessment years 1987-88 to 1989-90 – Whether section 271B is not attracted in a case where no account has been maintained and instead recourse under section 271A can be taken – Held, yes

The Supreme Court has upheld the revised accounting standards AS 22 issued by the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India which has been made mandatory for all the companies listed in the stock exchanges since the financial year 2001-02. Dismissing the appeals of a large number of companies that opposed the new policy, the bench headed by Justice SH Kapadia said AS 22 sought to arrive at the true accounting income.

There is good news in store for SEZ units. The government is likely to put on hold its plan of placing an export obligation on units operating in SEZs. The commerce department has suggested to the finance ministry that the government should consider imposing an export obligation only if exports from such zones fall below a threshold limit in the coming years. While the government was deliberating making it compulsory for all SEZs to export 51% of what they produce, the present average export figures of SEZs is much higher at 82%.

THE assessees were the Directors of M/s Hotel AMS Pvt. Ltd., Kondalapatti, Salem. During the course of survey conducted on 16.11.1999 under Section 133A of the Income Tax Act, it was noticed that the company had constructed the hotel with the share capital funds said to have been floated by the Directors. On enquiry with the assessees, the assessees offered a sum of Rs.12,00,000/ – as income, out of which Rs 2,00,000/- each in the name of the assessees and remaining in the name of other members in Hindu Undivided Family.

Now it’s the government’s turn to cash in on the stock market boom. The finance ministry is considering raising the rate at which securities transaction tax (STT) is levied. One of the options is to increase the ceiling rate to 0.5% of the value of the taxable securities transactions. At present, it is levied at rates of 0.017- 0.25% on every transaction on domestic bourses.

Whether, a Provision for Non Performing Assets (‘NPA’) debited to profit and loss account and claimed as a deduction in accordance with the prudential norms issued by the RBI in exercise of powers conferred on it under section 45JA of the RBI Act, 1934, called the Non Banking Financial Companies Prudential Norms (Reserve Bank) Directions, 1998, should be allowed as deduction while computing income from business under the provisions of the Income-tax Act, 1961?

Has your income-tax return been picked up for scrutiny by the income-tax department? You may not get to know the reason. The department is against bringing scrutiny under the purview of the Right To Information (RTI) Act. This means an assessee will not have the right under the RTI Act to ascertain as why his case was selected for scrutiny by the department.

isit a mall this festive season and you are likely to see some huge hoardings announcing bumper draws with prizes of food hampers, gift coupons, diamonds and so on. If you are lucky enough, even a fancy car could be yours. You cannot fail to spot this, as the car revolves seductively at the mall’s entrance enticing everyone who visits the mall.