You can never really understand investing until you weather a market downturn. The valuable lessons learned can help you through the bad times and can be applied to your portfolio when the economy recovers. Listed below are some common investor experiences during tough economic times and the lessons each investor can come away with after surviving the events.
These are uncertain times. The subprime mortgage crisis weighs heavily on the financial markets and it is starting to cause considerable collateral damage to the wider economy. The outlook for 2009 is bleak, and the major economies in the US and Europe can expect deep and prolonged recessions. Some asset managers have felt the full force of the downturn, as collapsing investor confidence has sparked a massive withdrawal of funds.
Hedging means managing risk. A fund manager employs a particular hedging technique in order to mitigate a particular type of risk. For example, a market risk can be hedged against by selling a broad collection of securities short, in equal proportion to one’s long exposure or by buying put options on an index. You can hedge against interest rate, inflation, currency etc. Tools for hedging include raising cash, selling short, buying or selling options, futures, commodity and currency futures etc.
CCE v. Maha Laxmi Sugar Mills Co. Ltd – non-submission of one particular return ST-3 for only quarter ending December 1997, on the part of the assessee cannot be said to be intentional withholding of the same for the purposes of avoiding the payment of tax, which has been paid by the assessee. It is pertinent to mention here that amount of tax was only Rs. 1,000/-. Therefore, considering the peculiar circumstances of the case, we are of the view that the Deputy Commissioner, Central Excise has committed no error of law in dropping the proceedings and the CESTAT has also committed no error in upholding the same and in setting aside the order passed by the Commissioner, in revision.
JAGAN LAMPS LTD. v. ITO The accepting of returned income is not an assessment; hence, it will be incorrect to say that the provisions of section 147 cannot be substituted for verification of correctness of entire information contained in the return of income.
Pooja Bhatt v. DCIT Income derived by the assessee-artist from the exercise of her activity in Canada is taxable only in source country i.e., Canada as per the scheme of taxation contained in the Indo-Canada Treaty; by using the expression “may be taxed in the other State” in Article 18(1) of the said Treaty, the contracting parties permitted only the other State i.e. State of income source and by implication, the State of residence was precluded from taxing such income.
Sunil Sethi v. DCIT- Where there was documentary evidence on record to substantiate the explanation of the assessee that the amount was given for the business purposes of the company, the same could not be considered to be deemed dividend in the hands of the assessee and the provisions of section 2(22)(e) were not applicable.
CIT vs. Raval Tiles (Bombay High Court) Where the Tribunal did not pass an order on the appeal despite considerable delay and instead fixed the matter repeatedly for ‘clarifications’ and thereafter closed the matter for orders on the basis of written submissions and without hearing the assessee, HELD the procedure followed by the Tribunal was not in compliance with the principles of natural justice.
M/s. Daga Capital Management Pvt. Ltd. Vs ITO, Mumbai (ITAT MUMBAI)] The words in relation to in s. 14A mean a dominant and immediate connection between the expenditure and the exempt income. To determine whether there is such a connection, one has to see the object with which the expenditure is incurred. If the expenditure is incurred mainly to earn taxable income and the tax-free income is incidental, there is no such connection and s. 14A does not apply. The onus is on the AO to establish that there is a dominant and immediate connection between the expenditure and the exempt income;
CIT vs. Sarabhai Holdings (Supreme Court) – Income Tax – Penalty – law permits the contracting parties to lawfully change their stipulations – What is material in the tax jurisprudence is the evasion of tax, not the beneficial lawful adjustment therefor . In the commercial world, the parties are always free to vary the terms of contract and, therefore, the assessee and the vendee had no legal impediment in modifying the terms of their contract. Merely because by Resolution the assessee agreed to defer the payment of interest, would not mean that it tried to evade tax.
