The assessee earned long-term capital gains of Rs. 40.57 L which was not chargeable to tax u/s 54EC. As the said gains were credited to the P&L A/c, the assessee excluded the gains whilst computing “book profits” u/s 115JB in view of the Special Bench judgement in Sutlej Cotton Mills 45 ITD 22 (Cal) (SB) where it had been held that non-taxable capital receipts had to be excluded from book profits. The AO and the CIT (A) rejected the claim. On appeal by the assessee HELD dismissing the appeal:
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.
Special Bench of the Income Tax Appellate Tribunal, New Delhi in the case of Cheminvest Ltd. (ITA Nos.87Del//2008, 4788/Del/2007 and 233/Ahd/ 2006) holds that expenditure relating to exempt income to be disallowed even if assessee has not earned any tax-free income.
The Income-Tax Appellate Tribunal, Mumbai in the case of Mr. Bomi S. Billimoria vs. A.C Cir 23(1), Mumbai (ITA No.2120/Mum/1998) held that in case no payment has been made for acquiring shares under Employee Stock Option Plan, the gain on sale of said shares should not be liable to capital gains tax. As the date of exercise of options and date of sale is same and further, there is no difference between the sale price and the deemed cost of acquisition, in any case, it is not short term capital gains.
The Income-tax Appellate Tribunal, Delhi in the case of Triton Holdings Ltd. vs Dy. Director of Income Tax, Deharadun (ITA Nos. 2541 to 2559/Del/2009) held that the tax paid by employer on the behalf of employees should be considered as a non-monetary perquisite in the hands of the employees for the purpose of claiming an exemption under section 10(10CC) of the Income-tax Act, 1961 (‘the Act’).
The Delhi Bench of the Income – tax Appellate Tribunal (Delhi Tribunal), in the case of Vertex Customer Services (India) Pvt. Ltd. (the taxpayer) held that exclusion of provision of doubtful debts from the operating expenses being a debatable issue and considering full disclosure made by the taxpayer; the taxpayer could not be held liable for penalty.
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.
Despite valiant attempt on the part of learned counsel for the appellant to convince us that in view of some observations in Dena Bank Vs. Bhikhabhai Prabhudas Parekh & Co. & Ors., 2000(5) SCC 694, the issue raised in the present appeal requires consideration, in our judgment the issue is no more res integra. In State Bank of Bikaner & Jaipur vs. National Iron & Steel Rolling Corp. & Ors., (1995) 2 SCC 19, explaining the scope of Section 11- AAAA of the Rajasthan Sales Tax Act, 1954 (for short, “the Act”) which is pari materia to Section 13-B of the Orissa Sales Tax Act, 1947, a three-Judge Bench of this Court has held that the statutory charge created under Section 11- AAAA of the said Act, the sales tax dues shall have precedence over the mortgage created in favour of the Bank.
The assessee earned a capital profit of Rs. 10.38 crores on sale of rights to immovable property. The said profit was directly credited to the capital reserves in the balance sheet instead of being routed through the Profit & loss account. The accounts of the assessee company were duly certified by the auditors and were also adopted in the AGM. The audited accounts were filed with ROC. In the computation of “book profits” for s. 115JB, the said capital profits were not included.
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.
