Tag: Taxation
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The Undisclosed Foreign Income and Assets (Imposition of Tax) Bill, 2015
In the Budget Speech 2015, the Finance Minister outlined certain broad themes surrounding the tax proposals. The “first and foremost pillar” was stated to be “to effectively deal with the problem of black money”. To that end, the Government has introduced the Undisclosed Foreign Income and Assets (Imposition of Tax) Bill, 2015 in the Lok Sabha.…
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Bombay High Court Ruling in Favour of Vodafone in Share Issue Case
Over the last couple of years, Indian subsidiaries of multinational companies have been faced with the unique tax issue pertaining to the issuance of shares to their parent companies. The tax department has questioned the valuation on which shares have been issued by the Indian subsidiaries and sought to apply the transfer pricing provisions under…
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Restrictions on Tax Inversions
A few months ago, we had discussed the use of “inversion” deals by U.S. companies to minimize the effect of U.S. taxes. Since then, inversions have been the subject matter of intense debate from a policy perspective. Two potential regulatory responses have been proffered. One is more short-term by which the U.S. government limits the…
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Bombay High Court on “Slump Sales”
The Bombay High Court recently considered as interesting point on ‘slump sales’ in the income tax context. The case, CIT v Bharat Bijlee 365 ITR 258, arose after the assessee company transferred one of its undertakings (as a going concern) to another entity under a scheme of arrangement u/s 391-394 of the Companies Act, 1956. …
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“Inversion” Takeovers
Standard treatises on mergers & acquisitions (M&A) contain the usual benefits or rationale for why a company would take over another. These include growth, size, synergies, and so on. One of the significant benefits of takeovers could also be tax synergies such as setting off the losses of one company against the losses of another.…
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The Meaning of ‘Plant and Machinery’ for the Purposes of Capital Gains
The National Gallery describes Sir Joshua Reynolds as the “leading English portraitist of the 18th century” and expert “in the work of Rembrandt, Rubens and van Dyck”. Improbably, the sale of one of his great paintings, the Omai of the Friendly Isles, recently gave rise to an interesting question of income tax law that has also troubled…
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Further Tax Scrutiny of Mergers
In the last few years, mergers of companies (undertaken through schemes of arrangement that require the approval of the High Court) have been subject to greater scrutiny by the tax authorities. One example of a merger that was strongly objected to by the tax authorities is the case involving Vodafone Essar Gujarat Limited (discussed here),…
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The Resurgence of REITs
Normal 0 false false false EN-US JA X-NONE /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:”Table Normal”; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-parent:””; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:12.0pt; font-family:”Times New Roman”;} More than 5 years ago (in December 2007), SEBI had issued a consultation paper and draft regulations with a view to paving the way…
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Petrodel v Prest: Lord Sumption’s Masterly Analysis of the Corporate Veil
When the history of the corporate veil is written, the year 2013 will perhaps be given as much prominence as the year 1897. Today, the UK Supreme Court allowed Mrs Prest’s appeal against the judgment of the Court of Appeal that seven properties in London owned by the Petrodel group of companies are not properties…
