The Finance Act, 2012 has inserted certain retrospective amendments in the Incomes Tax Act, 1961. One of them is insertion of explanation 4 and 5 to section 9 (1) (i) with an intent to tax transfer between nonresidents of shares of foreign company deriving value from assets located in India.
Interest amount for the purpose of TDS be increased from Rs. 10,000/- to Rs. 25,000/- on fixed term deposits with banks, tax exemption of Rs. 20,000/- under section 80CCF for investing in Infrastructure Tax Free Bonds be reintroduced, bringing more transparency in gold and real estate transactions at par with equity transactions, to bring housing sector within the definition of infrastructure and encouraging long term funds for investment in housing sector among others.
The Hon’ble Supreme Court in the case of National Thermal Power Company Limited v CIT (1998) 229 ITR 383 was considering a case where the assessee had deposited its funds not immediately required by it on short term deposits with banks. The interest received on such deposits was offered by the assessee itself for tax and the assessment was completed on that basis.
In the present case the reasons disclose that the Assessing Officer reached the belief that there was escapement of income on going through the return of income filed by the assessee after he accepted the return under Section 143(1) without scrutiny, and nothing more.
The reasoning recorded by the assessing officer cannot be said to be totally irrelevant, as the relevancy is in the context of escapement of income for the assessment year and the information may be from any source outside and an information with reference to any earlier year is outside the purview of the record of the current assessment year.
Provided further that the provisions of these regulations shall come into force in relation to different classes of intermediaries on such dates as the Board may by notification in the Official Gazette appoint.
Even a notional loss can be claimed by way of a business loss and as a deductible item in computing the income of the assessee for the year, as it is a computation on notional basis, it is made dependent on the manner of conduct of the assessee in respect of the earlier assessment period and particularly as to the assessee has been following this uniformly over a period of years and the test being when there was a notional gain as to whether it had been offered for tax etc.
ASSOCHAM wants correction as FM begins pre-budget consultations Showing a grave concern over the fact that notices for reopening of assessments by the tax authorities are being issued in thousands in recent times, ASSOCHAM today said returns should not be re-opened beyond three years. As Finance Minister P Chidambaram has started his pre-budget consultations with […]
It has also been argued that retrospectivity was not permissible because this amendment to the definition of “taxable service” is not merely clarificatory but brings about a substantive liability of taxation upon the service providers. It has also been contended that by giving a retrospective effect to this amendment to the definition of taxable service, the service provider is also saddled with liability to pay interest as well as penalty on the default in payment of service tax for the past period.
On a review, it has been decided to enhance the ECB limit for NBFC-IFCs under the automatic route from 50 % of their owned funds to 75 % of their owned funds, including the outstanding ECBs. NBFC-IFCs desirous of availing ECBs beyond 75 % of their owned funds would require the approval of the Reserve Bank and will, therefore, be considered under the approval route.
