Tag: Taxation
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Taxation and the Budget: An Initial Assessment of the Finance Bill, 2010
From the perspective of taxation (particularly income tax and service tax), the budget proposes changes in several areas. Importantly, the Finance Minister has clarified that the Direct Taxes Code will be introduced from 1st April, 2011. The GST will also be sought to be implemented from that date. In this post, I shall look at…
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Event Announcement: 3rd NLSIR Symposium on Corporate Governance
The National Law School of India Review (NLSIR), the flagship journal of the National Law School of India University, Bangalore, will be hosting the 3rd Annual NLSIR Symposium, ‘Indian Corporate Law and Corporate Governance: At the Crossroads’, in Bangalore, on 10th and 11th April, 2010. Extracts from the concept note for the Symposium may be…
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TDS u/s 195: Samsung Electronics appeal in the Supreme Court
We have discussed the issue of TDS u/s 195 of the Income Tax Act, 1961 a few times earlier; and have also discussed a recent judgment of the Karnataka High Court in Samsung Electronics. The decision holds that deduction must be made u/s 195 on all sums paid to a non-resident, irrespective of the chargeability…
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The Court of Appeal Reaffirms the Sanctity of the Corporate Form
Few issues have proved to be more controversial than the strength of the principle that the company is a separate legal entity. The exceptions to the principle – commonly referred to as “lifting” or “piercing” the corporate veil – are both statutory and judge-made. The statutory exceptions are, in the main, not controversial. However, while…
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Service Tax and Works Contracts
A recent decision of the Punjab and Haryana High Court Commissioner of Central Excise v. Vahoo Colour Lab clarifies the scope of service tax in the context of works contracts. Issues around works contracts have been controversial in relation to income tax as well as sales tax. The controversy in income tax law (in relation…
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Corporate Restructuring and the Business Purpose Rule
In 1935, the House of Lords famously observed that “every man is entitled to order his affairs” in order to minimise his liability to tax (IRC v. Duke of Westminster, [1936] AC 1). This is the dictum that is often cited as the source of the rule that while tax avoidance is legal, tax evasion…
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‘Manufacture’ in Income Tax
The decision of the Supreme Court in CIT v. Oracle Software is set to add another controversy to the many that already exist with respect to taxation. Involving the interpretation of the term ‘manufacture’, which has been a contentious issue in the excise law context, the decision gives rise to a couple of interesting issues.…
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Southern Technologies and Sticky Interest – Part II
We discussed the recent decision of the Supreme Court in Southern Technologies that rejected a challenge to the constitutionality of ss. 36(1)(vii) and 43D of the Income Tax Act, 1961. The Court held that non-banking-financial institutions [“NBFC”] must account as income interest received from loans that are, for commercial purposes, bad debts. Four important issues…
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Supreme Court Rejects NBFC Claim on Sticky Interest – Part I
Non-banking-financial institutions (“NBFCs”) face a serious setback after the judgment of the Supreme Court this Monday (11 January 2010) in Southern Technologies Ltd. v. JCIT. This blog has discussed a long-standing controversy in Indian law on the treatment of “sticky” advances. It is useful to briefly recapitulate the contours of this controversy before considering the…
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New Development on Section 14A, Income Tax Act
Several prior posts have discussed the decision of the Special Bench of the Mumbai Income Tax Appellate Tribunal in Daga Capital, on the appropriate interpretation of section 14A of the Income Tax Act. It was also observed that the problem was not so much with the provision per se, as with Rule 8D of the…
