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Join our free webinar on July 7 at 5 PM for insights into 10 recent High Court income tax judgments favoring assessees. Expert analysis by CA Dipak Dama.
Circular dated 15.5.2008 laying down monetary limit controls the filing of the appeals and not their hearing. Appeals filed as per applicable limit at the time of filing cannot be governed by circular applicable at the time of hearing. The object of the Circular u/s 268A is only to govern monetary limit for filing of the appeals. There is no scope for reading the circular as being applicable to pending appeals.
If the Bar Council of India has its way, all advocates in the country will soon have to accept fees only by cheque. And if the payment is to be made in cash, proper receipts must be furnished to the client and a register of the same will be required to be maintained by advocates.
CIT vs. M/s India Sea Foods (Kerala High Court) If an assessment happens to be an under-assessment or a mistaken order, the course open to the AO is either to rectify the mistake u/s 154 or to make a reassessment u/s 147. While, it is correct, as held in EID Parry 216 ITR 489 (Mad), that the AO has to choose between the two and cannot initiate both proceedings at the same time, the principle of constructive res judicata made applicable by the Madras High Court that the AO having initiated rectification proceedings u/s 154 should stick to the same only and cannot drop that and proceed u/s 147 is not acceptable. The fact that the AO invoked s. 154 and dropped it does not affect the validity of re-assessment u/s 147.
Whether the waiver of a loan is taxable as income or not depends on the purpose for which the loan was taken. If the loan was taken for acquiring a capital asset, the waiver thereof would not amount to any income exigible to tax u/s 28(iv) or 41(1). On the other hand, if the loan was taken for a trading purpose and was treated as such from the very beginning in the books of account, its waiver would result in income more so when it was transferred to the P&L A/c in view of Sundaram Iyengar 222 ITR 344 (SC).
Service tax has been levied on two newly carved services viz, air conditioned restaurants with license to serve alcoholic beverages and hotel accommodation. The restaurants may or may not be serving alcoholic beverages but it must be air conditioned and possess license to serve liquour. The restaurant need not be centrally air conditioned and as such all such restaurants where even one room air conditioner is installed would be taxed to service tax. So whether you consume food at home or at a restaurant, you are hit by inflation or an extra burden as service tax.
Section 91 of the Income Tax Act, 1961 allows credit for Federal & State taxes, the DTAA allows credit only for Federal taxes. The result is that the Section 91 is more beneficial to the assessee & by virtue of Section 90(2) it must prevail over the DTAA. Though Section 91 applies only to a case where there is no DTAA, a literal interpretation will result in a situation where an assessee will be worse off as a result of the provisions of the DTAA which is not permissible under the Act. Section 91 must consequently be treated as general in application and must prevail where the DTAA is not more beneficial to the assessee. Accordingly, even an assessee covered by the scope of the DTAA will be eligible for credit of State taxes u/s 91 despite the DTAA not providing for the same.
Rajeev Sureshbhai Gajwani Vs. ACIT – Article 26(2) means that taxation of a PE of a USA resident shall not be less favorable than the taxation of a resident enterprise carrying on the same activities. The result is that the exemptions and deductions available to Indian enterprises would also be granted to the US enterprises if they are carrying on the same activities. As the assessee was carrying on the “same activities” of export of software as done by residents, it was entitled to s. 80HHE deduction as admissible to a resident assessee.
The export of cotton yarn (Tariff Codes 5205, 5206 & 5207) was allowed under licence. Now, issue of export licences for cotton yarn will be subject to a limit of 720 million Kgs during the fiscal year 2010-11 (i.e. upto 31.03.2011).
Suspecting the use of black money to finance deals in the country’s booming real estate sector, the Income Tax Department is keeping close tabs on the sources of funding for developers’ lucrative projects. “The focus of the Income Tax Department is real estate developers as the department has received many complaints of the involvement of black money in these deals. There is a large amount of money involved in the sale and purchase of land and huge income is generated,” a Finance Ministry source said.
All conditions in policy circular no 15 of 1st February 2011 will continue to apply, except the specification about dates and the calendar given in Annexure 2 thereof since the allocation is being made today (10th March 2011 and not on 10th February 2011). Special attention be paid to para 3(iv) & (v).
