Builder/developer failed to deliver peaceful possession liable for compensation and Interest

Builder/developer, entered into registered agreement with the complainant on 13-9-2012 for sale of flat of the project developed by him. No date of possession was mentioned in clause 50 of the said registered agreement. Complainant has paid the entire consideration except the amount required to be paid at the time of handing over possession. The opponent failed to deliver peaceful and vacant possession of the subject flat even though opponent were in position to obtain occupation certificate from competent authorities on 12-8-2013. Consumer complaint has been filed praying for handing over possession of the subject flat and claiming monetary relief of Rs. 30,90,817/- for the deficiency of service on the part of the opponent.

The Hon’ble State Consumers Disputes Redressal Commission observed and held that failure on the part of opponent resulted into consumer dispute and the complainant was unnecessarily dragged to knock the doors of the State Commission subjecting to mental agony for his no fault. Therefore, suitable compensation on account of the avoidable delay to hand over the possession would meet the ends of justice.

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Self-Adjustment of excess service tax paid by Assessee

The hon’ble CESTAT NEW DELHI, in case of  'M/S PUNJAB NATIONAL BANK VERSUS C.C.E. & S.T.CHANDIGARH' held that Self adjustment of excess service tax paid can be done against the service tax liabilities for subsequent period.

Audit can be done by only Auditor- Delhi High court decision

The Delhi high court, in a leading judgement delivered on 3rd June, 2016, has declared service tax audit being conducted by Central Excise and Service tax department as ultra virus, in the matter of Mega Cabs Vs UOI. The matter was argued by Mr. J.K. Mittal, FCA as advocate of the petitioner.

The court held that audit is a specialized function and cannot be delegated to service tax department or Excise department. It has been a general practice of the service tax department to conduct Audit of Service tax assesses for the last 5 years by deputing own officers of the rank of inspectors and Superintendents. Service tax department also seeks voluminous details and seek information in self- specified formats/ annexures. Now this judgement made it clear that the officers of the department have no power to conduct Audit at all. The honorable High Court has also held that the CAG officers have no power to conduct audit of assessee's records.

Buy 1 get 1 free’ deals to come under GST

Free samples and gifts offered with purchases as well as popular ‘buy-one-get-one-free’ deals may attract the proposed Goods and Services Tax (GST) levy which government plans to roll out from April 2017.
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Input tax credit cannot be denied because seller has not deposited the tax collected

Fact of the Case:- the petitioner is a partnership firm under the name and style of M/s Gheru Lal Bal Chand, engaged in the business of sale and purchase of cotton. The petitioner procures material from different persons and sells the same in terms of the provisions of the relevant Act and the Rules and the tax which is paid by the dealer after deduction of Input Tax Credit is paid in the treasury. The firm is registered under the provisions of Act as well as the Central Sales Tax Act, 1956 (in short, the 'Sales Tax Act'). As per the petitioner, the scheme under the Act is that on the sale of goods, tax calculated would be treated as "output tax". But if the purchases are made from within the State of Haryana, the tax paid on such purchases is to be set off from the out-put liability and resultant tax liability is paid by the selling dealer. The assessing authority observed that the petitioner was not entitled for deducting input tax credit as per provisions of Section 8 of the Act, because the Value Added Tax (VAT) dealers from whom the petitioner had purchased certain goods had not deposited the full tax in the State Treasury. The stand of the dealer, however, is that it made bona fide purchases from the selling dealers who were duly registered by the Assessing Authority under the Act and irrespective of the fact, whether they paid full tax or not, he should be allowed the necessary input Tax Credit. The said selling dealers discharged their tax liability and deposited the tax payable by them by deducting the input tax credit available to them.

Can two or more Premises be registered as one registrant under Excise?

Yes, two or more premises can be registered under excise as one registrant if :-
(i)   two or more premises of the same factory are located in a close area
(ii)  these premises are within the jurisdiction of a Central Excise Range and
(iii) the process undertaken there are interlinked and
(iv) the units are not operating under any of the area based exemption notifications,
 If above conditions are met, the Commissioner of Central Excise, may, subject to proper accountal of the movement of goods from one premise to other and such other conditions and limitations, as may be prescribed, allow single registration.

For more details refer the circular below:-
Circular No. 1016/4/2016-CX

Anti-Dumping Duty on import of Polytetrafluoroethylene

An Anti dumping duty has been imposed on import of Polytetrafluoroethylene or PTFE for Five Years as per Notification No. 23/2016-Customs (ADD) dated 06th June 2016. Notification is self explanatory and can be downloaded from the Link below:-

Notification No.23/2016-Customs (ADD)

GST Bill likely in monsoon session

India will attempt to keep the proposed Goods & Services Tax ( GST ) rate as moderate as possible and the government will push for passage of the bill introducing the levy in the upcoming monsoon session of Parliament, finance minister Arun Jaitley said. 

The GST will replace various indirect taxes with one simple tax , creating a boundary-less national market that some estimate will lift India's GDP by as much as 2%. According to the Constitution (122nd Amendment) Bill, the GST Council consisting of finance minister, minister of state for revenue and state finance ministers will recommend the tax rate. 

"At what rate the GST Council will start it, I don't know...there have been recommendations which have been made by expert committees, including the one that the ministry of finance had set up. I'm sure we will try to keep rates as moderate as possible," Jaitley told Japanese investors at a Make in India seminar organised by the Department of Industrial Policy & Promotion and the Confederation of Indian Industry.

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Due date of filing Quarterly Return under DVAT for 4th Quarter 2016 extended

Due date for filing Return under Delhi VAT has been extended up to 27-05-2016 from 23-05-2016.

Kindly note that there is no extension of due date of payment of tax therefore pay Interest if tax not paid within due date.Otherwise Notice will served for non payment of tax.

Circular No- 7 of 2016-17

Display of Registration Certificate at principal place of business made compulsory by Delhi VAT Department

Delhi Government has directed ACs/ward incharges to ensure that all the registered dealers have prominently displayed the registration certificate at their principal place of business and a certified copy at all other places of business in Delhi. Further, the dealer shall also prominently display his TIN and ward number outside the main entrance of all places ofbusiness in Delhi. 

Circular No. 4 of 2016-17 F.3(667)/Policy/VAT/2016/200-205 dated 10^th May, 2016

[Download- Circular ]

Leviability of service tax in respect of services provided by arbitral tribunal and its members

Services provided or to be provided by an arbitral tribunal is taxable if such service provided to a business entity which is located in the taxable territory and having turnover exceeding Rs 10 lakh.

Such service is taxable and liability to pay tax has been cast on the recipient i.e business entity who will pay tax under reverse mechanism.

However services provided by an arbitral tribunal were exempted from service tax if provided to  

Exempted Services by Government

Central Board or Excise & Custom vide Notification No 26/2016-ST dated 20 May 2016   has clarified the Services on which no Service Tax is leviable if provided  by Government or a local authority to a business entity having  a turnover up to rupees ten lakh in the preceding financial year. Following services would not be taxable as per the said notification:-

Karnataka Budget Proposals 2016

VALUE ADDED TAX

• Scheme to recognize and honour five diligent tax payers in each of Bengaluru based divisions and three each from VAT divisions other than Bengaluru.

• Module for transportation of goods that will allow transporters to upload the details of goods being transported online for hassle-free movement of goods.

• Development of mobile application for the benefit of small dealers.

• Issue of online refunds to the eligible dealers.

• Online service of statutory proceedings using digital signature certificates.

जीवन जीने की कला – विपश्यना साधना

जीवन जीने की कला – विपश्यना साधना

बर्न, स्विटज़रलैंड में श्री सत्य नारायण गोयन्का द्वारा दिए गये प्रवचन पर आधारित।

सभी सुख एवं शांति चाहते हैं, क्यों कि हमारे जीवन में सही सुख एवं शांति नहीं है। हम सभी समय समय पर द्वेष, दौर्मनस्य, क्रोध, भय, ईर्ष्या आदि के कारण दुखी होते हैं। और जब हम दुखी होते हैं तब यह दुख अपने तक ही सीमित नहीं रखते। हम औरों को भी दुखी बनाते हैं। जब कोई व्यक्ति दुखी होता है तो आसपास के सारे वातावरण को अप्रसन्न बना देता है, और उसके संपर्क में आने वाले लोगों पर इसका असर होता है। सचमुच, यह जीवन जीने का उचित तरिका नहीं है।

Sale/Purchase--Intra State Vs Inter-State

Under the Central Sales Tax Act,1956 (in short CST), registered dealers are eligible for certain concession or exemption of tax on inter-State transactions if dealer is able to comply with certain conditions. Submission of statutory forms is one of such condition which allows the dealer for concessional rate of tax. There are so many forms like Form C, Form F, Form H, Form-I , Form E-I or E-II etc. etc.However before dealing with the procedural issues involved in obtaining or submitting these Forms it is more important to understand few concepts like what is ‘ intra-State transaction’ or ‘Inter-State transaction’ because once nature of transaction is established, it would be very easy to know that whether VAT is applicable of central Sales Tax (CST)and then procedural compliance can be done easily.
post available at www.tbauk.com 

Annual Information Return under Service Tax and central excise Law

Now Reserve Bank of India and a State Electricity Board (SEB) or its authorized agency would be require to Annual Information return (AIR)  under the Service Tax Law.
As per Notification No 04/2016-Service Tax, Any officer of the RBI who is authorized in this behalf is required to file AIR for the transaction details of foreign remittances for the receipt of services declare under specified code in the said notification.
SEB ie required to file AIR for transaction detail of consumption of electricity by the specified manufactures.

detail notification can read as follows:-

Quoting of PAN for specified transactions

Amended Rules regarding quoting of PAN for specified transactions

(Applicable w.e.f. 1^st January 2016)

In order to curb the circulation of black money and widening of tax base, to collect information of certain types of transactions from third parties in a non-intrusive manner, the Income-tax Rules require quoting of Permanent Account Number (PAN) where the transactions exceed a specified limit. Persons who do not hold PAN are required to fill a form and furnish any one of the specified documents to establish their identity.

    

     One of the recommendations of the Special Investigation Team (SIT) on Black Money was that quoting of PAN should be made mandatory for all sales and purchases of goods and services where the payment exceeds Rs.1 lakh. Accepting this recommendation, the Finance Minister made an announcement to this effect in his Budget Speech. The Government has since received numerous representations from various quarters regarding the burden of compliance this proposal would entail. Considering the representations, it has been decided that quoting of PAN will be required for transactions of an amount exceeding Rs.2 lakh regardless of the mode of payment.

GST roll-out deadline likely to be pushed back to April 1, 2017

The central government has set a new deadline for goods and services tax (GST) as April 1, 2017, a good one year after the current one of April 1, 2016.

Salient Features of Model GST Act

Background

The model law of the much anticipated GST will probably be out by the end of January next year for general public for feedback however a model GST Act is getting circulated of which source of release could not be independently verified in the absence of it being unavailable on the government portal.

We are tried to brief the features of the Model GST as per this model. There would be separate Acts for CGST, SGST and IGST. The model Act would guide for drafting GST Act for each of the state.

Input Tax Credit under proposed GST Law

Goods and service tax more popularly known as GST is knocking on the door.  Merits & demerits of GST would be evaluated in due course of time however we need to get ready before its entry in our system. Input tax credit system is the one of the core area of GST where we can see major changes and benefits. Here just trying to brief the mechanism of Input credit under GST.

Form C under central Sales Tax Act 1956

I made an effort to understand the concept of Inter-State Sale/purchase under Central sales Tax Act, 1956 (CST)in my last post.Now going to discuss Form C:-

Circular explaining law relating satisfaction note under section 158BD/153C

The CBDT has circular in which CBDT has explained the law relating to recording of satisfaction note by the Assessing Officer.

Copy of circular is appended below:-

Validate certificate under section-197

It is very common that deductor get certificate for lower deduction of TDS from the deductee. On the basis of such certificate, lower TDS is deducted and while filing TDS return, deductor mention the certificate number in return however demand of short deduction arises due to wrong quoting of 197 certificate number.

It happens because when the deductor accepts from deductee a manually issued lower deduction certificate by assessing officer & quotes the same in TDS statements. To resolve the issue CPC(TDS) has provided the facility of validating the 197 certificate to the deductors and that if the 197 certificate is not valid as per TRACES validation, the deductor should always insist upon an ITD system generated certificate having a unique 10 digit alpha numeric number. The entire procedure for this is explained in the advisory letter issued by CBDT.

Electronic filing of first appeal before CIT(Appeals)

Government of India

Ministry of Finance

Department of Revenue

Central Board of Direct Taxes

PRESS RELEASE

New Delhi, 30th December, 2015

Subject: Electronic filing of first appeal before CIT(Appeals) – reg.

It is the endeavour of the Income tax Department to digitise various functions of the

Summary of the Constitution (One Hundred and Twenty-Second Amendment) Bill, 2014 (GST)

The Constitution (One Hundred and Twenty- Second Amendment) Bill, 2014 was introduced in the

Lok Sabha on December 19, 2014 which seeks to amend the Constitution to introduce the goods and 

services tax (GST). Consequently, the GST subsumes various central indirect taxes including the 

Central Excise Duty, Countervailing Duty, Service Tax, etc. It also subsumes state value added tax, 

octroi and entry tax, luxury tax, etc.

Accounting code for payment of Swachh Bharat Cess

Swachh Bharat Cess is leviable on all taxable services, other than services which are fully exempt from Service Tax or services which are otherwise not liable to Service Tax under section 66B of the Finance Act, 1994, at the rate of 0.5% [notification No.22/2015-ST, dated 6^th November, 2015 refers].

Accordingly, accounting codes have also been allotted by the Office of the Controller General of Accounts for the new Minor Head “506-Swachh Bharat Cess” and new Sub-heads as under:

Swachh Bharat Cess on Taxable Services w.e.f. 15-11-2015

Central Boar of Excise & Custom i.e. CBEC on the eve of Deepawali (i.e. on 6^th November)  notified that Swachh Bharat Cess would be applicable @ 0.5% on value of all taxable services and same shall be effective from  15^th November 2015.

Swachh Bharat Cess on services where Abatement is Available:-

What Proof can be given for Date of Birth while applying PAN Card

Following documents can submitted in support of 'date of birth' if these documents contain name, date, month and year of birth of the PAN applicant :-

(a) birth certificate issued by the municipal authority or any office authorized to issue birth and death certificate by the Registrar of Birth and Deaths or the Indian Consulate as defined in clause (d) of subsection (1) of section 2 of the Citizenship Act, 1955 (57 of 1955);  or

Filing of reconciliation return for the year 2013-14 under Delhi VAT

The last date of filing of online return in Form 9 for the year 2014-15, prescribed under Rule 4 of Central Sales Tax (Delhi) Rules, 2005 has been extended to 15 DEC 2015  

Who is required to file it:-

Compliance window under Black Money Act - An insight into

Compliance window under Black Money Act - An insight into

The Hon'ble Finance Minister in his budget speech for 2015-16 had proposed introduction of Black Money Bill in the Parliament. The Bill was passed by the Parliament in its budget session. The Bill received the assent of the President on May 26, 2015 and it became the law. It is to be called as "The Black Money (Undisclosed Foreign Income and Assets) and Imposition of Tax Act, 2015" ("the Black Money Act"). It has been clarified by the Government that such Black Money Act would be applicable from July 1, 2015.

How to come clean under Compliance window Make declaration of foreign asset or income on or before Sept 30, 2015. Person making declaration has to pay penalty and taxes on or before Dec 31, 2015.

No Interfere by Hon'ble H.C in extension of due date

a) The petitioner claims to be entitled to extension of due date of filing income-tax return (‘ITR’) (i.e., September 30, 2015) due to the delay on the part of the respondents in prescribing the ITR forms.

b) It was contended that the said forms were prescribed only vide Notification dated 29th July, 2015 and were made available only with effect from August 7, 2015. The argument of the counsel for the petitioner was that since the Assessment Year 2015-2016 commenced on 1st April, 2015 and the due date for filing the return is 30th September, 2015, so 180 days are to be made available to the assessee to file the return.

The Delhi High Court held as under:

Compliance window under Black Money Act

The Hon'ble Finance Minister in his budget speech for 2015-16 had proposed introduction of Black Money Bill in the Parliament. The Bill was passed by the Parliament in its budget session. The Bill received the assent of the President on May 26, 2015 and it became the law. It is to be called as "The Black Money (Undisclosed Foreign Income and Assets) and Imposition of Tax Act, 2015" ("the Black Money Act"). It has been clarified by the Government that such Black Money Act would be applicable from July 1, 2015.

NO TDS on payments made to corporations whose income is exempt u/s-10(26BBB) of the Income Tax Act,1961

The CBDT has issued Circular No. 07 dated 23.04.2015 stating that the CBDT has decided that since corporations covered under Section 10(26BBB) satisfy the two conditions of Circular No. 4/2002 i.e. unconditional exemption of income under Section 10 and no statutory liability to file return of income under Section 139, therefore any corporation whose income is exempted under Section 10(26BBB) of the Act will also be entitled to the benefit of the said Circular. Hence there would be no requirement for tax deduction at source from the payments made to such corporations since their income is anyway exempted under the Act.
copy of circular can be find under link below
Circular

A note on DUTY DRAWBACK

DEFINITION AND OBJECTIVES

The term drawback is applied to a certain amount of duties of Customs/central excise, some times the whole, some times only a part remitted or paid by Government on the exportation of the commodities on which they were levied. To entitle goods to drawback, they must be exported to a foreign port, the object of the relief afforded by the Drawback being to enable the goods to be disposed of in the foreign market as if they had never been taxed at all. For Customs purpose drawback means the refund of duty of customs and duty of central Excise that are chargeable on imported and indigenous materials used in the manufacture of Exported goods.

GOODS ELIGIBLE FOR DRAWBACK

This scheme applies to

a.       export goods imported into India as such

b.      export goods imported into India after having been taken for use

c.       export goods manufactured / produced out of imported material

d.      export goods manufactured / produced out of indigenous material

e.       Export goods manufactured /produced out of imported or and indigenous materials.

it is not open to the assessee to bifurcate Depreciation into current & C/F depreciation to claim u/s 32 of I.T.Act

S. 32: The assessee has the right to disclaim depreciation in its entirety. However, it cannot claim depreciation for the current year and disclaim unabsorbed depreciation

The assessee claimed the depreciation allowance insofar as it pertained to the current year. At the same time, it did not want to claim the set off of the unabsorbed depreciation allowance of the previous years. The Supreme Court had to consider whether it is open to the assessee to invoke the provisions of Section 32 of the Act by claiming depreciation of the current year, but at the same time choose not to make a claim of set off of unabsorbed depreciation allowance of the previous years. HELD by the Supreme Court rejecting the plea:

Gold Monetization Scheme

The Finance Minister in his budget speech for the Union Budget 2015 - 16 made the following announcement:

"India is one of the largest consumers of gold in the world and imports as much as 800-1000 tonnes of gold each year. Though stocks of gold in India are estimated to be over 20,000 tonnes, most of this gold is neither traded, nor monetized. Keeping this in view, the government in Budget 2015-16 has announced the Gold Monetization Scheme which will replace both the present Gold Deposit and Gold metal Loan Schemes. The new scheme will allow the depositors of gold to earn interest in their metal accounts and the jewellers to obtain loans in their metal account. Banks/other dealers would also be able to monetize this gold".

For the purpose, a draft of the Scheme has been prepared and released on Tuesday and comments & suggestions have been invited by the government on the draft and same can be posted by accessing the link below:-

http://mygov.nic.in Portal. 

The main objective of the Scheme is to mobilize gold held by the households in lieu of interest and to make it available to the gems and jewellery sector as raw material on loan. This scheme aims at reducing reliance on import of gold to meet the domestic demand. A brief FAQ is given below to understand the scheme:-

New Rate of Service Tax will be effective from 01st June 2015

Notification notifying the applicability of new service tax rate has been issued.
New Rate of Service Tax i.e @14% (including Education Cess) will be effective from 1st June, 2015 as per Notification No. 14/2015 issued on 19th May, 2015. Swach Bharat cess @ 2 % will not applicable form 01 st, June, 2015. Date of applicability of Swach Bharat Cess will notified soon.

Indirect Taxes-Budget 2015-Changes Effective from 14th May 2015

Changes which are become effective from 14^th May 2015 (i.e. the date on which Finance Bill received Presidential Assent) are summarised below:-

Amendments in the Central Excise Act, 1944

1. Section 11A stands amended as follows:

(i) category of cases where extended period of time applies but the transactions are recorded in the specified record, will be removed from the statute,

(ii) provision relating to relevant date also amended to provide definition of relevant date in respect of cases where a return is not filed on the due date and where only interest is required to be recovered,

(iii) provisions of section 11A will not apply to cases where the non-payment or short payment of duty is reflected in the periodic returns filed and that in such cases recovery of duty will be made in such manner as may be prescribed in the rules.

Sukanya Samariddhi Yojna - Part-II

These FAQs are the continuation of the post on "Sukanya Samriddhi Yojna" posted on 18-03-2015,

1.     Where can the account be opened?

As per Sukanya Samriddhi Account Rules, 2014 account can be opened in any branch of the Commercial Banks as autorised by the Government or in any branch of the Post Office in India.

2.     With what amount, account can be started/opened?

The account may be opened with an initial deposit of one thousand rupees (Rs.1000/-), and a maximum amount of Rs. One lakhs fifty thousand can be deposited in a year.

3.     How many times a person can deposit in the account in a particular year?

Sukanya Samariddhi Yojna

P.M.Shree Narendra Modi with a vision to provide for education and marriage expenses of a girl child, has announced a scheme i.e. “Sukanya Samriddhi Yojna’.

Under this scheme an account shall be allowed to get open with Banks or post office and amount deposited such accounts will be eligible for deduction U/S 80C of the Income Tax Act,1961

As it is new announcement and financial year is near to close, many of the taxpayers are rushing to invest under various schemes eligible for deduction to save tax.

I have just tried to sum up FAQs for clarification on the scheme based on Notification and rules notified so far.

Mandatory Documents Required For Export And Import Reduced To Three Each

India took a leap forward in improving 'Ease of Doing Business' today by reducing the mandatory documents required for import and export of goods to three documents each. The Directorate General of Foreign Trade (DGFT) issued a Notification to this effect today (Notification Link below).

Date extended for filing of online DVAT Return for third quarter of 2014-15

Due date for filing Return under DVAT has been extended further upto 15-02-2015 from 02-02-2015.

Originally it is due on 25th of Jan-2015.

 Extract of Circular by the Department

Advance by Partner to Firm & Section 269SS

Whether advances given by partner of a partnership firm to the firm violates the provisions of section 269SS and liable to penalty u/s 271-D? 

Held: No. 

Clarifications regarding Mandatory pre-deposit of duty or penalty for filing appeal

​

Clarifications regarding Mandatory pre-deposit of duty or penalty for filing appeal
Section 35FF of the Central Excise Act, 1944 and Section 129EE of the Customs Act, 1962 prescribe mandatory pre-deposit as a percentage of the duty demanded where duty demanded is in dispute or where duty demanded and penalty levied are in dispute.In this regard, CBEC vide Circular No. 993/17/2014-CX., Dated: January 05, 2015 has provided the following: