: A search and seizure was conducted by the revenue (respondents) in the premises of the appellants (KCC software Ltd), pursuant to warrants of authorization dated 3.8.2005. On 4.8.2005 certain assets including jewellery, cash and fixed deposit receipts were seized. On that very day, appellants received a letter from the HDFC Bank at B-28, Community Centre, Janakpuri, New Delhi that operation of five bank accounts of appellant No.1 had been restrained by order issued under Section 132 (3) of the Income Tax Act, 1961 (in short the Act). The Income Tax Department on 4.10.2005 issued two fresh warrants of authorization under Section 132 of the Act in respect of the bank accounts. On 5.10.2005 the bank accounts of the appellants were searched and seized through withdrawal of cash by demand drafts.
ADDITIONAL Commissioners of Income Tax as assessing officers? Not a rare sight, indeed! It is a common practice in the Income Tax Department. And the reasons could be anything from dearth of staff, burdensome workload to the sensitive nature of cases. But whatever could be the reasons, their jurisdiction has come under the radar of questioning! The spinal question is : Do they have legitimate jurisdiction to do such assessments? If yes, where is the CBDT order and the procedure laid down for allowing such delegation of such powers?
WITH India getting rapidly integrated to the global economy, making payments either for services or reibursement to a non-resident company or individual has become common for the India Inc. But what has not become common is the practice of deducting tax at source (TDS) under Sec 195. And this case is illustrated best in the latest decision of the ITAT which has held that it is obligatory for the payer to a non-resident company to deduct TDS u/s 195 without going into any other aspect with regard to nature and taxability of the payment and rejected assessee i.e. payer’s contention that reimbursements made by it were not in the nature of income in the hands of payee. As to the consequences of such non-deduction of TDS, it held that provisions of Sec 40(a)(i) are attracted as per which, any claim of such amount will not be allowed as deduction during computation of income of payer and can be claimed only on deduction and deposition of such tax which though is subject to subsequent assessment by the A.O.
THE Assessing Officer during the course of assessment proceedings observed that the assessee has claimed share trading loss of Rs.7,91,263/ -. From the various bills furnished by the assessee including the brokers notes, the Assessing Officer observed that the assessee has not taken physical delivery of shares purchased but only paid margin money. Since actual delivery of shares were not taken by the assessee the Assessing Officer treated the transactions as speculative transactions within the meaning of provisions of section 43(5) and treated the loss claimed by the assessee as speculative loss and allowed to be carried forward as per law.
WHAT is ‘manufacture’ ? The Income Tax Act does not define it all. Nor does it say that the scope and meaning of this word may be borrowed from the sister taxing statute of Central Excise Act. As a result, it continues to be a major loosely defined concept, provoking the Income Tax AOs to disallow benefits claimed by the industry. This is what happened even in this case.
THE variety of information which is nowadays being sought under the RTI Act has indeed grown in quality and magnitude. One such quality question was volleyed at the CBDT which is related to Sec 11 of the Income Tax Act.
Computation u/s 115JA. The Assessing Officer while computing book profits u/s 115JA made disallowance on account of provisions made for (i) depreciation on investment, (ii) provision for amortization of securities, (iii) rebate allowed, (iv) provision for bad and doubtful debts, and (v) provision for fraud cases. It has been pleaded that in respect of first three items the nature of provisions has been explained under normal provisions. As regards provision for bad and doubtful debts, the same had been made as per RBI guidelines.
THE High Court stays the transfer of a file from one ITO to another; the transferred ITO ignores the High Court order and proceeds with the assessment. Later on the High Court quashing the transfer, the old ITO proceeds with assessment. Tribunal rules that it is time barred; High Court concurs.The Income Tax Appellate Tribunal, Hyderabad Bench, by its order dated 23.01.1995, referred the following question, which according to it covered the controversy raised in the four questions proposed by the Revenue, for the opinion of this Court under Section 256(1) of the Income Tax Act
FOR the Income Tax Department, the latest ruling of the Larger Bench of the Punjab & Haryana High Court amounts to a big win. And, at the centre of the dispute was whether the interest paid on borrowed capital for purchasing new plant and machinery before the same is put to use is revenue expenditure or to be added to the ‘actual cost’ of the asset? What further complicated the issue was the fact that the assessee was a running company and wanted to set up a new plant by buying new machinery out of borrowed capital.
THE assessee company was incorporated during the financial year 1997-98. Originally, there was a company jointly promoted by Tatas and IBM , which were known as Tata IBM. During the financial year 1997-98, it was mutually agreed between the two promoters to bifurcate the business activities into separate entities viz. IBM Global Services India Private Limited (the assessee company) and Tata IBM . As per the agreement entered into, various assets of the erstwhile Tat IBM were transferred to the assessee company has paid amounts of Rs. 9,38,57,925/ – and Rs. 5.3 Crore on account of transfer of certain employees to the assessee company and on account of transfer of the data base of the domestic business. The assessee company actually paid a sum of Rs. 18.4 crore for the transfer of the employees to the assessee company but claimed an expenditure of Rs. 9,38,57,925/ – as the remaining sum of around Rs. 9.01 crore was attributable to STP Unit, income of which was exempt.
