Tag: Taxation
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Budget 2009: Key Features and Some Thoughts
[Posted by Umakanth Varottil] India’s Finance Minister, Mr. Pranab Mukherjee, presented the Government’s annual Budget in Parliament yesterday. While commentators brand it a mixed bag, the stock markets do not seem to have received the Budget favourably as the stock indices experienced their largest Budget-day fall in history. The purpose of this post is to…
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Lead Managers, Bond Issues and Taxes
[Posted by V. Niranjan] Previous posts have examined the scope of Indian taxation of fees for technical services that are paid to non-residents. This is an increasingly common commercial practice, especially in the context of issuing shares or bonds abroad. An interesting issue that has arisen recently before the Bombay ITAT is whether Indian companies…
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Possible Delay in LLP Tax Clarification
[Posted by Umakanth Varottil] Although the Limited Liability Partnership Act came into effect on April 1, 2009, it appears that only about 38 limited liability partnerships (LLPs) have registered themselves under this new legislation. One of the key shortcomings of the existing regime is the lack of clarity on taxation of LLPs as the Income…
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Service Tax on Renting Immovable Property
[Posted by Shantanu Naravane] A recent decision of the Delhi High Court in Home Solution Retails v. Union of India has caused some interesting issues concerning service tax to resurface. Admittedly, the law laid down by the Court is not new. However, the factual backdrop of the decision, and the debate it has given rise…
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More Uncertainty in the Law on Penalties
[Posted by V. Niranjan] Earlier posts have noted and examined a few recent decisions of the Supreme Court and the ITAT on the law governing the imposition of penalties under the Income Tax Act, 1961. In what is perhaps the best restatement of the position of law today, the Pune Bench of the ITAT appears…
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Obama’s ‘Taxing’ Proposals
[Posted by Shantanu Naravane] On Monday (4th May, 2009), the United States President, Barrack Obama announced the proposed implementation of another one of his election promises, targeted towards improving the domestic economic climate, and freeing up financial resources for investment in areas of pressing importance. The proposal is to withdraw the scheme of deferred tax…
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Writing off Bad Debts and Tax Liability
[Posted by V. Niranjan] The treatment of bad debts has been a constant source of disagreement between financial institutions and the Tax Department. Banks typically argued that some advances were so unlikely to be recovered that they may justifiably be regarded as “sticky” advances, and that interest on these advances should not be treated as…
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A Much Needed Reading Down of Dharmendra Textiles
[Posted by Shantanu Naravane] An earlier post highlighted the implications of the decision of the Supreme Court in Dharmendra Textiles (306 ITR) on penalty proceedings under the revenue laws, including the Income Tax Act. The Court there overruled its earlier decision in Dilip Shroff, and concluded that there is no requirement of mens rea in…
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NCLT and NTT: Questions of “Intrinsic Judicial Functions”
[Posted by Mihir Naniwadekar] Recently, a Constitution Bench of the Supreme Court (headed by Balakrishnan C.J.) finished hearing arguments on the constitutionality of the proposed National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT), and judgment has been reserved. The matter arose out of an appeal against a Madras High Court decision in R. Gandhi v. Union of India.…
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Non-Discrimination: Protecting foreign-owned subsidiaries
[Posted by Mihir Naniwadekar] A recent decision of the Pune Bench of the Income Tax Appellate Tribunal in Daimler Chrysler v. DCIT deals with several important issues. One of these was whether the provisions of a Double Taxation Avoidance Agreement would apply in the absence of double taxation. The Tribunal held that given the role…