The Supreme Court today said the CBDT order, as and when it is passed, on Mahindra Satyam tax dispute case would not take effect for two weeks so that the IT company may challenge it in an appropriate forum.

Terming the $2.6 billion tax liability on the company as ‘inequitable’, UK-based Vodafone today questioned the Indian authorities for not raising the tax claim on the party (Hutchison) which made profit by selling its stake. Vodafone exuded confidence that there was no tax payable on its deal for buying majority stake of Hutchison in Indian telecom firm Hutchison-Essar for over $11 billion in 2007.

The government will mop up Rs 1,400 crore (Rs 14 billion) this fiscal by taxing the second installment of arrears due to central government employees, who were awarded increased salaries by the Sixth Pay Commission. The first installment of arrears (representing 40 per cent of the increased pay) was disbursed during financial year 2008-09.

The Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) has set up a committee to formulate rules for the safe harbour provisions—a set of rules that would enable the income tax (I-T) authorities to accept the transfer pricing returns without scrutiny. Transfer pricing refers to the price at which one arm of a company, usually a multinational corporation, transfer goods or services to another division of the same organisation in order to calculate each arm’s profit and loss separately.

The government will allow companies to adjust the fringe benefit tax (FBT) paid by them against the advance tax due in the March quarter, reducing the hazard of claiming a refund and slightly improving profits at a time of rising costs, said an income-tax department official. “The Central Board of Direct Taxes has taken an in-principle decision to allow corporates to adjust FBT paid in the first quarter against their advance tax,” he said.

How much tax is paid by the foreign AE is not relevant in the determination of correct tax liability in the hands of the Indian enterprise; what is material is that the rightful tax payable in India should not suffer due to the adjustment of price for goods or services between the related enterprises.

However, in view of the fact that the agreement has been accepted as genuine in the hands of one of the parties and economic consequences have also occurred because the assignee has made the payment to the Government, the transaction is necessarily be treated as genuine one, and for this reason, we do not wish to deliberate much on the various contentions raised by the assessee in this regard. Accordingly, we accept ground No. 5 & 7 of the assessee and ground No. 6, being of the nature of arguments, have already been dealt with hereinbefore, hence, there is no specific decision is given thereon.

Learned Chartered Accountant submits that the excess amount paid in the subsequent period may be treated as mere deposit which can be adjusted against the earlier short payment and it may be paid alongwith interest. I am unable to accept the contention of the learned Chartered Accountant. The assessee paid the service tax of excess amount against the taxable service which cannot be treated as mere deposit. Therefore, such adjustment is contrary to the provisions of Rule 6(3) of the Rules. Hence, demand of tax on this issue is justified.

The government’s tax collections could take a Rs 10,000-crore hit this year due to the setting up of the income-tax dispute resolution panel (DRP) for settling transfer pricing disputes. Such a dispute arises when there is a disagreement between the government and the taxpayer, especially a foreign company, in determining the tax liability of its subsidiary.

The sub-rule (1) provides the different forms of returns to be filed by various categories of dealers. Earlier, the dealers. used to submit these forms of return-cum-chalan physically either to the Bank alongwith payment of tax, interest etc., if any or to the Sales Tax Department where tax liability was NIL. These forms of the return were return-cum-chalan.