tax avoidance

TRIAD GESTCO LTD. VERSUS HER MAJESTY THE QUEEN (Canada Tax Court) - The transactions undertaken by the appellant amount to abusive tax avoidance because they defeat the underlying rationale of the capital loss provisions in the Act. Through the manipulation of the fiscal 'amount' of the Rcongold common shares, the appellant created artificially devalued property that was transferred to a person within the same economic unit to create an artificial capital loss without in.. Full Article

Dismissing the notion that Mauritius is a tax haven, the island nation's Vice Prime Minister Ramakrishna Sithanen on Tuesday said he has not received any complaints from India about routing investments via his country to evade taxes. However, Sithanen, who is also the finance and economic development minister, promised to cooperate with Indian authorities to check tax evasion in case of complaints, but added his country would not welcome 'fishing expeditions'. Full Article

Income Tax authorities are planning to broaden the tax base, seek greater exchange of information under the tax treaties and provide better services to tax payers by 2020 when the direct tax reforms would be firmly in place. The apex direct tax body, Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT), has formed seven committees comprising senior revenue officials to come out with a draft Vision 2020 document that would delineate ways to increase tax collections in a non-intrusive man.. Full Article

A revised Agreement and Protocol between India and Finland for Avoidance of Double Taxation and the Prevention of Fiscal Evasion with respect to Taxes on Income (DTAA) was signed by Sh. S.S.N.Moorthy, Chairman, CBDT on behalf of Government of India and Ms Terhi Hakala, the Ambassador of Finland to India, on behalf of Government of Finland, here today. Full Article

After taxing investors for dividend stripping, the Income Tax (I-T) Department is gearing up to tax bonus stripping. Official sources say scrutiny of returns filed by companies, brokers and individuals active in the stock markets and in possession of shares revealed wide use of this mechanism to evade tax. Full Article

The forthcoming Union budget may have an anti-avoidance provision, which can effectively check convoluted transactions devised exclusively for the purpose of evading paying taxes in India. The finance ministry, said revenue department officials, is contemplating the idea of vesting powers with the commissioners of Income-tax (I-T) to declare a transaction a sham, if there is a reason to believe that its purpose is to avoid tax in this country. Full Article

This follows a renewed effort by CBDT to seek clarification on the issue. The finance ministry has decided to keep the issue of taxing participatory notes (P-Notes) on the back burner to encourage foreign inflows. These views follow a renewed effort by the Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) to seek a clarification on the taxation of the P-Notes. Sources said the clarification was sought since it was noticed that the issuance of these notes had gone up, following a buoy.. Full Article

Tax Planning :- Tax planning as a concept had at a point of time suffered degradation and for a while seemed to be a euphemism for tax evasion. This was the fall-out of some observations in McDowell’s case, [154 ITR 148 (SC)] especially in the separate opinion of Justice Chinnappa Reddy. But the libel did not stay too long. Sabyasachi Mukherjee, Justice of the Supreme Court salvaged its respectability by observing tax avoidance by genuine transactions is not evil. Full Article