The Bombay High Court ruled that once the taxpayer’s submissions with respect to section 14A was accepted by a tax officer, the Tribunal cannot send back the same matter for the tax officer’s re¬consideration. Recently, the Bombay High Court in the case of Topstar Mercantile Pvt. Ltd v. ACIT (2009-TIOL-458-HC-MUM-IT) has held that the Income-tax Appellate Tribunal (the Tribunal) was not justified in sending back the matter to Assessing Officer (AO) to consider the applicability of section 14A of the Income Tax Act, 1961 (Act) after applying the ratio of the decision in the case of ITO v. Daga Capital Management Pvt. Ltd [2008] 312 ITR (SB) (Mum) since the submissions made by the taxpayer in this regard was accepted by the tax officer during the assessment proceedings.
Foreign Law Firms are not eligible to open liaison offices or to practice law in India. Even giving an opinion on a legal matter amounts to “practise of law”. Non-Advocates cannot practise law.
The assessee purchased machinery which was not put to use during the year though it formed a part of the “block of assets”. On the question whether depreciation on the said machinery was allowable, the Tribunal held that once a particular asset falls within the block, it is added to the WDV and depreciation is to be allowed on the block.
It is quite common for the Revenue to treat such expenditure as capital in nature and administer depreciation allowance, only. An assessee would always put forth his argument that such replacement cost is only to maintain the existing level of efficiency of his manufacturing facility and would not result in any increase in its production capacity, thereby claiming it to be revenue in nature. In this context, it is quite pertinent to examine the current judicial thinking on this issue.
Recently, the Himachal Pradesh High Court in the case of CIT v. Maggronic Devices Pvt. Ltd. [2009-TIOL-568-HC-HP-IT] held that payment made by the taxpayer to a Singapore company for outright purchase of plant and product knowhow cannot be considered as ‘Royalty’ within the provisions of the Income-tax Act, 1961. Accordingly, no tax was required to be deducted while making payment to the Singapore company for acquiring such know-how outside India.
In a path-breaking judgment, the Bombay high court has held that even a single dissenting member of a cooperative housing society cannot be thrown out by a builder based on a mere development agreement with the society and a majority of the flat owners in it for redevelopment of the building.
The Tribunal dismissed the excise appeal of the assessee for non-appearance. The application filed by the assessee for restoration of the appeal was also dismissed. The dismissal was challenged before the High Court on the ground that under s. 35C of the Excise Act (corresponding to s. 254 of the Income-tax Act) the Tribunal had no power to dismiss an appeal for non-appearance of the Appellant. It had to decide on merits. HELD:
Section 271(1)(c) of the Income-tax Act, 1961 (“the Act”) empowers the Assessing Officer (“AO”) to levy penalty if he is satisfied that the assessee has concealed the particulars of income or furnished inaccurate particulars of income. A new section 271(1B) was introduced by the Finance Act, 2008 with retrospective effect from 1 April 1989, providing that in a case where an addition/disallowance has been made in computing taxable income/loss, a direction given by the AO to initiate penalty proceedings would deem to constitute „ satisfaction? for initiation of penalty proceedings.
Himachal Pradesh High Court holds that Outright purchase of plant knowhow in the form of technical / engineering data, design, drawings etc. is not royalty / fee for technical service, subject to withholding taxes
The assessee wrote off an amount as a “bad debt” in its accounts and claimed a deduction u/s 36 (1) (vii). The AO asked the assessee to furnish information as to the names and addresses of the debtors, copies of ledger accounts and efforts made to realize these dues. On failure by the assessee to furnish the information, the claim was disallowed on the ground that the onus to prove that the debt was a bad debt was on the assessee which had not been discharged.
