Month of February is the shortest month of the year and this shortest month gets the highest importance other than any month of the year. For Indian economy it is the month where all expectation and desires followed with wishes and prayers are expected to come true. For some it comes true and for some it remains negative or dull. We celebrate festivals but the dates or months or time changes but the festival of February is always fixed that is at the last week of February.

Yesterday the Parliament of India have created a history by making a walkout even before the budget was yet to be finished. The opposition parties made the walkout once it was declared in the budget that petrol prices to go up. To levy excise duty of Re1 per liter on petrol and diesel have made the whole of India to think about the probable price they will have to pay for every commodity.

ICAI welcomes the Union Budget presented by the Hon’ble Finance Minister Shri Pranab Mukherjee, which can be termed as a relief oriented budget. The Budget skillfully balances the need to step up the economic growth on one side, check inflation on the other side and also address the socio-economic needs of the nation.

Finance Bill 2010 has made an amendment in the definition of the taxable service ‘Renting of immovable property’ [section 65 (105) (zzzz)] to provide explicitly that the activity of ‘renting’ itself is a taxable service. This change is being given retrospective effect from 01.06.2007.

It is, therefore, proposed to also allow deduction in respect of any contribution made to CGHS by including such contribution under the provisions of section 80D. The deduction will be limited to the current aggregate as mentioned in the section.

In tune with the policy thrust of promoting investment in the infrastructure sector, it is proposed to insert a new section 80CCF in the Income-tax Act to provide that subscription during the financial year 2010-11 made to long-term infrastructure bonds (as may be notified by the Central Government), to the extent of Rs. 20,000, shall be allowed as deduction in computing the income of an individual or a Hindu undivided family.

Under the existing provisions of section 56(2)(vii), any sum of money or any property in kind which is received without consideration or for inadequate consideration (in excess of the prescribed limit of Rs. 50,000/-) by an individual or an HUF is chargeable to income tax in the hands of recipient under the head ‘income from other sources’. However, receipts from relatives or on the occasion of marriage or under a will are outside the scope of this provision.

The Finance (No. 2) Act, 2009 provided for the taxation of LLPs in the Income-tax Act on the same lines as applicable to partnership firms. Section 56 and section 57 of the Limited Liability Partnership Act, 2008 allow conversion of a private company or an unlisted public company (hereafter referred as company) into an LLP. Under the existing provisions of Income-tax Act, conversion of a company into an LLP has definite tax implications.

Under the existing provisions contained in section 44BB(1) of the Income-tax Act, income of a non-resident taxpayer who is engaged in the business of providing services or facilities in connection with, or supplying plant and machinery on hire used, or to be used, in the prospecting for, or extraction or production of, mineral oils is computed at ten per cent. of the aggregate of the amounts paid.

One of the conditions for availing the benefit under section 35AD in the case of laying and operating a cross-country natural gas or crude or petroleum oil pipeline network for distribution, including storage facilities being an integral part of such network, is that the specified business ‘has made not less than one-third of its total pipeline capacity available for use on common carrier basis by any person other than the assessee or an associated person’.