Attention of Authorised Dealer Category – I banks is invited to Notification No. FEMA 22/2000-RB dated May 3, 2000 viz. Foreign Exchange Management (Establishment in India of Branch or Office or other Place of Business) Regulations, 2000 as amended from time to time, in terms of which a person resident outside India requires prior approval of the Reserve Bank for establishing Branch (BO)/ Liaison Offices (LO) in India.
This article summarizes a recent ruling of the Special Bench (SB) of the Mumbai Income Tax Appellate Tribunal (ITAT) [ITA No. 7315/Mum/2007] in the case of DCIT vs. Manjula Shah (Taxpayer) which held that, in the case of gifted capital asset, indexation benefit is available to a donee from the year of its acquisition by the previous owner. The SB adopted a purposive construction of the definition of ‘Indexed Cost of Acquisition’ (ICOA) by looking at the scheme of the Indian Tax Law (ITL), which seeks to grant the benefit of cost and holding period of the previous owner to the donee.
This ruling provides guidance that withdrawal from a revaluation reserve is permitted to be reduced from the book profit, computed under the MAT provisions, only in a case where the book profit was increased by the amount of revaluation reserve in the year of creation.
Levy of sales tax on a higher percentage on ‘superior kerosene oil’ (SKO) (also called white kerosene oil) and also levy of resale tax and surcharge on it by Tamil Nadu Government have been upheld by the Madras High Court. The attack by dealers that levy of different rates for same commodity was discriminatory was turned down by the Court which ruled that such allegation of discrimination would “amount to questioning legislative policy of the State to tax a particular commodity”.
Managers cannot be termed workmen, the Bombay High Court has held, in a significant verdict that throws light on a vexed issue on who constitutes a workman in the post-liberalisation era. Observing that Industrial law must keep pace with times, the Court also held that managerial organisation today is radically different from the pre-liberalisation era.
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.
The fringe benefit tax (FBT) was strongly opposed by India Inc, but there is no doubt that it was beneficial to the employees — they did not have to directly bear the tax on many perquisites. The repeal of FBT meant uncertainty on taxation of perks. Thankfully, there are few changes to the valuation rules when compared to the rules that existed prior to the introduction of FBT.
Accounting regulator, the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (ICAI) has decided to allow officials of the Indian Audits and Accounts Service (IA&AS)—the stream of civil servants who audit state-run companies—acquire the chartered accountancy (CA) qualification in less than the usual time. Officers of IA&AS, a central government service under the government’s statutory auditor the Comptroller and Auditor General of India , will now be able to become qualified CAs by undergoing only two years of training rather than the mandatory three year training called articleship.
The Supreme Court has stayed the Karnataka High Court ruling that asked technology firms to deduct tax on all payments made to non-residents on software purchases.A Bench headed by Justice S H Kapdia stayed the Karnataka High Court judgement on a couple of petitions by GE India Technology Centre Pvt Ltd and Engineering Analysis Centre of Excellance Pvt Ltd (EACEPL) seeking to set aside the high court judgement that held them legally bound to withhold tax on all cross-border payments.
At the beginning of each calendar year i.e. in the month of January, the Range Head in consultation with the concerned Assessing Officer would identify at least 5 pending time-barring assessment cases in respect of each Assessing Officer of his Range for monitoring. These should normally include cases taken up for scrutiny with the permission of CCIT. The selection should be done jointly by the Range Head and the concerned Assessing Officer. Cases of PSUs and loss-making concerns should normally not be identified for this purpose. This exercise should also include those Ranges which are held as additional charge by a Range Head in January.
