Utilization of refund of TDS by company in liquidation would amount to contempt of court: Apex court

Contempt of Courts Act: Company in liquidation received money from National HighwayAuthority of India (NHAI) on account of acquisition of company's land.High Court had directed NHAI to deposit said amount with Registrar of High Court andNHAI deposited said amount after deducting TDS.

Thereafter, company has filed its return and claimed refund of the entire amount coveredby the TDS. Such amount was utilized for various purpose by the company. The ApexCourt held that utilization of TDS refund would amount to Contempt of order of High Court,as refund was actually compensation in respect of land acquired from company and itwas that amount which High Court wanted to protect by its order. - [2017] 79 taxmann.com 463 (SC)

Share premium isn’t part of capital employed for computing Sec. 35D deduction of preliminary exp: SC

The issue before the Supreme Court was as under:

Whether "Premium" collected by Company on its subscribed share capital was to be treated as "capital employed in the business of the Company" within the meaning of Explanation(b) of sub-section(3) to Section 35D so as to enable the Company to claim deduction of preliminary expenses as prescribed under Section 35D?Supreme Court held in favour of revenue as under:

The "premium amount" collected by the Company on its subscribed issued share capital could not be said to be the part of "capital employed in the business of the Company" inview of the following reasons:-

1) If the intention of the Legislature was to treat the amount of "premium" collected by theCompany from its shareholders while issuing the shares to be the part of "capitalemployed in the business of the company", then it would have been specifically said so inthe Explanation(b) to sub-section(3) of Section 35D of the Act. It was, however, not said so.

2) Section 78 of the Companies Act which deals with the "issue of shares at premium anddiscount" requires a Company to transfer the amount so collected as premium from theshareholders and to keep the same in a separate account called "securities premiumaccount". It does not anywhere say that such amount should be treated as part of capitalof the company employed in the business for one or other purpose, even under the

Companies Act.

3) Column III of the Form of Annual Return prescribed under the Companies Act whichdeals with capital structure of the company, provides "issued shares capital break up".This column does not include in it the "premium amount collected by the company from itsshareholders on its issued share capital". This is indicative of the fact that such amount isnot considered as a part of the capital, unless it is specifically provided for in the relevantsection. - [2017] 79 taxmann.com 450 (SC)

Lessee can’t claim depreciation on reimbursement of construction cost to lessor: Apex Court

Facts:

a) Mother Hospital Private Ltd. (Assessee)entered into an agreement with a partnership firm for construction of hospital building on land belonged to the firm.

b) It wasagreed that the firm will complete the construction of the building on the condition that the entire cost of construction should be borne bythe assessee. Since the ownership of the land had to remain with the firm, it was also agreed that the land would be given on lease.

c) Assessee filed its return in which it claimed depreciation on the building portion on the ground that it was deemed owner of building as per Explanation 1 to section 32. 

d) Assessing Officer (AO) rejected claim of depreciation which was upheld by the CIT(A) and High Court on further appeals.

e) Aggrieved by the order of High Court, assessee filed the instant appeal before the Supreme Court.

Supreme Court held in favour of revenue as under:

1) As per explanation 1 to section 32:

“Where the business or profession of the assessee is carried on in a building not owned by him but in respect of which the assessee holds a lease or other right of occupancy and any capital expenditure is incurred by the assessee for the purposes ofthe business or profession on the construction of any structure or doing of any work in or in relation to and by way of renovation or extension of or improvement to the building, the provisions of this clause shall apply as if the said structure or work is a building owned by the assessee."

2) As is clear from the plain language of the aforesaid Explanation, it is only when the assessee holds a lease right and any capital expenditure on the construction to the building is incurred by the assessee, that assessee would be entitled to depreciation to the extent of any such expenditure incurred.

3) If construction is carried out by lessor and expenditure is reimbursed by lessee, Explanation 1 would not come to the aid of the lessee.

4) In the instant case, construction was made by the firm and not by the assessee. It was a different thing that the assessee had reimbursed the amount to the lessor.

5) Since construction was not carried out by the assessee himself, therefore Explanation 1 to section 32 could not be applied and, accordingly, assessee couldn’t claim deprecation on building. [2017] 79 taxmann.com 375 (SC) 

Mere signing of 'Sauda Chitthi' wouldn't prove that assessee had received consideration from sale of land: HC

Facts:

a) Assessee received re-assessment notice on the ground that a document was seized from the residence of Mr. RV, one of the partners of the firm in which assessee was also a partner.

b) This was a copy of 'Sauda Chitthi' entered into between the assessee and Mr. V on one hand as seller and Mr. PK and Mr. RV on other side of the deal as buyers for purchase of land.

c) According to the Assessing Officer (AO), the total sale consideration for above land, according to 'Sauda Chitthi', came to Rs. 18.80 crores and subsequently a sale deed was executed for a consideration of Rs. 56.39 lakhs and balance amount of Rs. 18.23 crores was received by assessee in cash as on-money. He held that the differential amount must be added to income of assessee.

d) Assessee filed writ petition before High Court against such re-assessment notice. High Court held in favour of assessee as under:-

1) It was an admitted position that the assessee had never executed any sale deeds. Merely on the basis of the 'Sauda Chitthi' signed by the assessee (signed and executed though, admittedly they were not owners of land for which the 'Sauda Chitthi' was executed/signed), it couldn’t be said that any amount was received by him.

2) Considering the statement of Mr. RV, he had categorically stated that the ‘Sauda Chitthi’ dated 12-03-2008 was subsequently had cancelled. It also didn’t appear that Mr. RV had stated that he had paid any amount to the assessee.

3) There was no other tangible material available with the AO other than ‘Sauda Chitthi’ to form a reasonable belief that the amount of Rs. 18.23 crores had been received by the assessee in cash.

4) Thus, formation of opinion by the AO seemed to be on surmises and conjectures, which couldn’t be the basis for reopening the assessment, in exercise of powers under section 147. [2017] 79 taxmann.com 237 (Gujarat)

CBDT issues guidelines for waiver of interest of assesseein- default

CBDT via Circular No. 11/2017 dated 24-03-2017 has issued guidelines to reduce or waived off the interest charged under section 201(1A)(i) in case of assessee’s failure to deduct tax at source in some specified cases.

The cases in which the reduction or waiver of interest under section 201(1A)(i) can be considered are as follows:

1) In case where books of account and other documents necessary for making TDS were seized by the department due to which assessee was not able to deduct tax within due time.

2) Where no tax was deducted on any sum paid or payable on the basis of any order passed by the jurisdictional High Court and subsequently such order was reversed by any retrospective amendment or by a decision of Supreme Court or by a larger bench of jurisdictional High Court.

3) In respect of payment made to non-resident, where: 

a) dispute regarding the tax payable in India in respect of the said payment had been referred to the Competent Authority in India as mentioned in Rule 44H.

b) such reference had been received within a period of two years of the date on which the notice of demand determining the tax payable was received by the assessee;

c) the dispute has been settled by way of a resolution arrived at under the Mutual Agreement Procedure (MAP) provided in the said agreement; and 

d) the assessee has given his acceptance to the resolution and has withdrawn his appeal(s) pending on the issue within one month of the date on which the resolution is communicated to him.

In cases where assessee has already paid interest under section 201(1A)(i), assessee is entitled to get refund of such interest amount if the waiver order has been passed by the authority.

Payment for usage of ICC marks to promote Reebok brand can’t be held as royalty: ITAT

The issue before the Tribunal was as under:

Whether payment made by Reebok to ICC as 'Rights fee' for use of Marks of ICC for purposes of promotion and advertisement was in nature of 'Royalty' or 'Fees for technical services'?

Tribunal held in favour of Reebok as under:-

Reebok India Company (assessee) had entered into an agreement with ICC. As per terms of agreement ICC allowed Reebok to associate with it as 'Official Partner of ICC' to advertise its products during the ICC events.

ICC had agreed to grant to the assessee certain 'promotional, advertising, marketing and other commercial rights' on a worldwide basis in connection with the ICC events. In all, there were two types of payments, which the assessee was supposed to make under the Agreement, namely, 'Rights fee' and 'Royalty' Payment made by assessee as “Right fee’ exclusively for use of Marks of ICC for purposes of promotion and advertisement couldn’t be said as ‘Royalty’ asICC did not provide any technical, industrial, commercial or scientific knowledge to assessee for use of ICC marks on his product for promotion in ICC events.

There was a separate clause provided in the agreement for payment of royalty on the manufacture and sale of licensed products using the Marks of ICC which was in nature of 'Royalty' duly covered under clause(iii) of Explanation 2 to section 9(1)(iii). Thus, payment madeexclusively for use of Marks of ICC for purposes of promotion and advertisement and not for manufacture and sale of licensed products couldn’t be treated

as 'Royalty' - [2017] 79 taxmann.com 271 (Delhi - Trib.)

Excise dept. can’t blame advocate for its own failure to remove office objections in appeal: HC

Excise department (Revenue) filed the appeal before the High Court with the plea to quash order passed by Registry dismissing its appeal seeking time to remove office objections.

High Court held as under: -

1) All the appeals filed by the revenue were entertained by condoning delay and there was enough time to remove office objections, but those were not removed.

2) Revenue officials were playing a blame-game. To cover up their lapses and deficiencies, they turned around and blamed their Advocates. They were of the opinion that their Advocates ought to have informed them and at every stage of the matter, particularly as to which office objections had to be complied with or were to be removed.

3) If the officers were unaware of legal procedures, then they had to be in touch with their Advocates. They could not expect that the Advocate himself would come to their office and apprise them as to what further had to be done after the filing of an appeal.

4) While allowing the appeal, we are expecting that this blame game will not be played further and Revenue officials must communicate with their Advocates periodically or rather regularly apprise themselves on the stages their Appeals have to go through. - [2017] 79 taxmann.com 268 (Bombay)

SRK wins tax case; ITAT allows Rs 10 cr. deduction for securing IPL team sponsorship for Star India

Facts:

a) Shah Rukh Khan (SRK) had entered into a service agreement with Star India Pvt. Ltd. (‘Star India’) for hosting of ‘KBC’.SRK had received advance of Rs.72 crores for two seasons of KBC and the same had also been offered to tax on receipt basis.

b) After the production of the episodes for first season of KBC, the Star India decided not to produce the second season for commercial reasons. So, it wanted to recover the value of the unutilized amount from the SRK for non-shooting of the second season of KBC.

c) SRK agreed to secure for Star India a sponsorship association with KKR IPL Team. For securing such sponsorship, he paid Rs.10 crores to Knight Riders Sports Pvt. Ltd. and in return sponsorship rights were awarded to Star India

d) SRK claimed deduction of such expenditure while computing his business income while Assessing Officer (AO) disallowed such expenditure as he was of the view that SRK was under no obligation to refund any amount to Star India.

e) CIT (Appeals) affirmed order of AO, aggrieved by the order of CIT, SRK filed the instant appeal before the Tribunal.

Tribunal held in favour of SRK as under:

1) It is not the legal necessity to spend the expenditure which is determinative of its allowability; rather, it is the existence or otherwise of commercial expediency which guides the allowability of expenditure under Section 37(1).

2) From the point of view of commercial expediency, it is abundantly clearly that assessee had a long-standing professional relationship with Star India Pvt. Ltd. and there is a nexus between the impugned expenditure and the purpose of business.

3) It was not for the Revenue to prescribe what expenditure should an assessee incur and under what circumstances.

4) In the instant case, there was no challenge to the bonafides of the expenditure incurred. Therefore, same could be understood to had been incurred wholly and exclusively for the purposes of business.

5) Accordingly, the order of the CIT(A) was set-aside and the AOwas directed to delete the addition of Rs.10 crores. - [2017] 79 taxmann.com 227 (Mumbai - Trib.) 

Cabinet approves GST Bills to implement GST from July 1

On Monday, the Union Cabinet gave its nod for four crucial GST Bills to usher in the country's biggest-ever tax reform. The meeting was chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. This meeting was conducted to understand and approve the four Bills - Central GST, IGST, UT GST and Compensation Bills.

Now the Government will introduce these Bills in the ongoing Budget session of Parliament itself. It is expected to be tabled in Parliament this week as Money Bills. The Government hopes to get them passed in the ongoing session to ensure the tax is implemented from July 1, 2017.

However, the State GST Bill will be taken up by State Cabinets and introduced in each State Assembly. The GST Council, in its previous two meetings, had given approval to the four legislations as also the State-GST (S-GST) bill.

Once GST is implemented, a composite tax will be levied on sale of goods or rendering of services. After the new indirect tax regime is rolled out, the revenue would be split between Centre and states in almost equal proportion. This because central taxes like excise and service tax and state levies like VAT will be subsumed in the GST. While the CGST will give powers to the Centre to levy GST on goods and services after Union levies like excise and service tax are subsumed, the I-GST is to be levied on interstate supplies. The SGST will allow states to levy the tax after VAT and other state levies are subsumed in the GST. The UT-GST will also go to Parliament for approval.

Reimbursement of salary of seconded employees held as FTS; ITAT relies on HC’s ruling of Centrica

Facts:

a) Assessee, a swiss company was engaged in providing operations and management services to airports. It had entered into an agreement with Bangalore International Airport Ltd. (BIAL) for secondment of its skilled personnel.

b) Assessing Officer (AO) held that the payment received by the assessee from BIAL was in the nature of Fees for Technical Services (FTS) and, accordingly, chargeable to tax in India.

c) Assessee claimed that the seconded personnel work under the direct control and supervision of BIAL as it had the right to issue directions to the seconded employees. Therefore, aforesaid receipts cannot be considered as FTS.

d) CIT(A) upheld the order of AO, aggrieved-assessee filed the instant appeal before the Tribunal.

Tribunal held in favour of revenue as under:

1) Secondees were holding high managerial position and also holding the position in the management as CEO and CCO. This clearly establish the fact that they were not ordinary employees but having the expertise in the field of management. Therefore, the purpose of assignment was to avail the services of highly qualified personnel.

2) The Hon'ble Delhi High Court in the case of Centrica India Offshore Pvt. Ltd. v. DCIT [2014] 44 taxmann.com 300 (Delhi) had held that where employees used their technical knowledge and skills while assisting in conducting business of quality control and management, sum reimbursed to overseas companies towards salaries of seconded employees amounted to FTS.

3) Therefore following the decision of Hon'ble Delhi High Court in the case of Centrica (Supra),amount received in terms of secondment agreement was in nature of FTS, chargeable to tax under section 9 as well as under article 12 of India-Switzerland DTAA. – [2017] 79 taxmann.com 199 (Bangalore - Trib.)