Even if you are taking an accident victim to hospital, you will have to pay service tax before getting him admitted to hospital. This statement has come true by virtue of the budget, 2013 as announced by hon’ble finance minister on 28.02.2013.
In previous budget, service tax law was shifted to negative list regime. Mega exemption notification no. 25/2012 ST dated 20.6.2012 was issued to prescribe the list of exempted services. In the current year budget, nominal changes have been done in this list. One such change has been done in the serial no. 21 of this notification which exempts certain services provided by a Goods transport agency. This article has tried to look into the implications of this amendment.
Under negative list regime, the service tax was introduced on restaurants, eating joints and mess which have licence to serve the liquor and facility of central heating or Air conditioning at any time during the previous year. However, this budget has removed the condition regarding the licence to serve the liquor.
Section 11A of the Central Excise Act, 1944 prescribes the issuance of show cause notice and other related provisions. In this section, sub-section 7A is inserted by Budget, 2013 to cover the cases of recurring nature where the show cause notices are issued on the exactly same grounds and allegations from time to time to the same assessees.
It is urged by PSPC, on the strength of the decision in Rajasthan Housing Board v. Krishna Kumari [2005] 13 SCC 151, that since the electricity connection was restored to the factory premises in terms of the order dated 18th December 2008 of the Court, the dues of PSPC ought to be directed to be paid straightway by CBL and PSPC should not be relegated to the OL for its dues. The above submission is untenable for more than one reason.
it is well settled by the judgment of the Supreme court in ITO v. M.K. Mohammed Kunhi [1969] 71 ITR 815 that the Tribunal, while exercising its appellate powers under the Income Tax Act has also the power to ensure that the fruits of success are not rendered futile or nugatory and for this purpose it is empowered, to pass appropriate orders including orders of stay. In ITO v. Khalid Mehdi Khan [1977] 110 ITR 79 the Andhra Pradesh High Court, applying the rule laid down in M.K. Mohammed Kunhi (supra), stayed the assessment proceedings pending before the Assessing Officer consequent to the directions of the CIT given in orders passed under Section 263 of the Act.
Though the power of the A.O. to reopen an assessment within a period of four years is indisputably wider than when an assessment is sought to be reopened beyond four years, the power is nonetheless not unbridled. After the amendment which was brought in by the Direct Tax Laws Amendment Act, 1987 with effect from 1 April 1989, the A.O. must have reason to believe that income has escaped the assessment. At the same time, the A.O. is not conferred with the power to review an assessment and he cannot reopen an assessment only because of a mere change in the opinion.
Bare perusal of the scheme of Chapter XVII-B shows that it mandates the person responsible for paying any sum out of which tax is required to be deducted at source to deduct the requisite amount of tax at source out of the amounts paid/credited by him. Deduction of tax is made out of the amounts paid/credited by the person responsible for paying/crediting the same.
A plain reading of the provisions of Section 188 makes it amply clear that a member who intends getting his proposed resolutions included for circulation to members must have not less than one twentieth of the total voting power of all the members at the date of the requisition or must be not less than 100 members in number to exercise such a right.
The lower authority had also held that the refund claim is partially time-barred. The appellant had argued that the refund claim is not hit by limitation inasmuch as the time prescribed under Section 11B is applicable only to those tax which is collected as permitted by the statute and in the instant case the tax was collected without authority of law and hence time limit is not applicable.
