In this case the assessee’s contention for interest under section 244A was not accepted by the Assessing Officer. The Assessing Officer observed that according to section 244A(2), if the proceedings resulting in refund are delayed for reasons attributable to the assessee, whether wholly or in part, the period of the delay so attributable to him shall be excluded from the period for which interest is payable. The Assessing Officer held that from the records it is seen that the above condition was directly applicable to the assessee’s case. He observed that the assessee-company was not able to produce the original documents and these were procured by the assessee-company much later to assessment proceedings. Accordingly, the Assessing Officer held that no interest under section 244A was to be granted.
The AO has noted that during the course of assessment proceedings, the assessee-company had vide a letter dated 4/3/2002 voluntarily offered for taxation by disallowing a sum of Rs. 15,54,260/-. In view of the said voluntary offer, the impugned amount was added back to the income of the assessee. When the matter was carried before the first appellate authority, it was held that the impugned amount was offered for taxation and it was not a case of mistaken impression of law, therefore, in the absence of any other material, the action of the AO was upheld.
In this case, assessee was given ESOP by Gillette Co. In his submissions and ESOP plan it has been observed that these ESOPs are cashless. Assessee has to pay nothing on exercise of ESOP. The assessee has been granted ESOP in earlier years without any cost. On the date of exercise the amount under ESOP to the assessee was deducted from the sale proceeds and the difference amount between sale proceed and exercise price amounting to Rs. 1,07,35,727 (less transfer expenses) has directly been credited on 7th March, 2006 in assessee’s bank account.
The safeguard built in section 50C does envisage a situation that whenever assessee claims that the fair market value of the property is less than the stamp duty valuation of the property, a reference can be made to the Departmental Valuation Officer and all these issues relating to valuation of the property – either on the issue of allowing a reasonable margin for market variations, or on the issue of making adjustments for agreements having been entered long ago, can be taken up, before the Departmental Valuation Officer and, therefore, subsequent appellate forums as well.
Since the issue of LIBOR has been considered and decided by the Tribunal in various cases as relied upon by the assessee (supra); therefore, to maintain the rule of consistency, we follow the decision of the coordinate Benches of this Tribunal, and accept LIBOR for benchmarking interest on interest free loans to AEs. Since the LIBOR is a rate applicable in the transactions between the banks and further the loans advanced by the bank to clients are secure by security and guarantee; therefore, a loan which has been advanced without any security or guarantee as in the case of the assessee has to be benchmark by taking the Arm’s Length interest rate as LIBOR plus.
It is noticed that the ancestral property was received by two brothers and the same was divided by two brothers by entering into an agreement between the two brothers. The assessee sold his share and shown the capital gain in the hands of HUF capacity. Whatever, the interest was received on sale consideration etc., the same was offered for taxation in his HUF capacity. The return was filed with the department, copy of the same is placed at page 70A along with computation of income as well as balance sheet. The same has been accepted by the department.
It is not in dispute that salary and wages accrue daily, weekly, fortnightly or monthly as per the contract of the employment. This is so as services is rendered in praesenti, the liability of the employer to compensate the employees for the services rendered also accrues in praesenti. A perusal of the Orders of the lower authorities show that what is actually in dispute is the quantification of compensation. As the assessee is a PSU, the pay revision depends upon the decision of the Government.
t is settled position of law that the AO must have tangible material on the basis of which he can have a reason to believe that income has escaped assessment. In the present case, it is submitted that there was a total absence of any tangible material to form a belief. Rather the findings of the ITAT in wealth tax proceedings for the AYs 2001-02 to 2006-07 contradict the reasons recorded by the AO before issuing notice u/s 148 of the Act on 31.3.2011.
Regarding the applicability of the provision of section 2(24)(iv) of the Act, we find that the same is discussed at length in the order of this Tribunal in the case of Ashok W. Phansalkar (supra) it is the finding of the Tribunal that the similar concessions offered to the Director attract such provisions. The facts of the said case are that the assessee-Director purchased a flat from the company for Rs. 10 lakhs against the market value of Rs. 3.85 crores.
In our opinion the Scheme of the Act does not authorize the Assessing Officer to make a disallowance according to his wishes, rather it provide that he should first point out the defects in the accounts of the assessee. In the finding extracted (Supra) it nowhere reveals what was the total amount of expenditure claimed by the assessee, which specific vouchers was not in accordance with law. In a just sweeping statement, the ld. AO observed that on verification, some of the expenses were found to be unverifiable, but what were those expenses, he should make out in the assessment order, only then he can disallow them. This is more important when in a row in the last 4-5 years, similar disallowances were made by him but deleted by the ld. CIT (A) as well as ITAT.
