The Supreme Court of India has struck down key provisions of the 2021 Tribunals Reforms law, citing violations of separation of powers and judicial independence. The court restored earlier directions on tenure for tribunal members.
Nokia India Ltd, the wholly owned subsidiary of Finnish cellular equipment maker Nokia, on Thursday suffered a legal setback when a tax appellate tribunal ordered it to pay service tax on consultancy services offered by it to the parent company's cli
The tribunal raised tax demand against several airlines, including Jet.
The Supreme Court on Wednesday rejected the Board Of Control For Cricket In India's plea against a tribunal order asking it to pay around Rs 18 crore as service tax for video graphing matches and selling the feed to private sport channels.
InterGlobe Aviation, the operator of IndiGo, has approached the Delhi high court seeking a refund of over Rs 900 crore it claims to have paid as Customs duty on aircraft engines and parts re-imported into India after overseas repairs. The petition came up for hearing on Friday before a bench of Justices Prathiba M Singh and Shail Jain.
The Supreme Court has said that selling land or property is not a service under the Finance Act, 1994, so such sales cannot be charged with service tax.
The government's contention was that Sahara Airlines Ltd (now JetLite) was promoting the real estate and housing business and area operations of Sahara India Commercial Corporation.
The service tax department had issued notice to Microsoft India in September 2008 demanding Rs 400 crore (Rs 4 billion), which consisted of a duty demand of Rs 255 crore and interest on the amount for three years, over an alleged tax evasion for services provided by the company to its sister concern in Singapore.
While recalling the order, the bench agreed to the contention of the law officer that there was a "breach of principle of natural justice" as the government department was not accorded the hearing.
In a relief to two-wheeler major Hero Honda Motors, a tax tribunal has ruled in favour of the company in a case filed by the Excise department for alleged duty evasion to the tune of Rs 2 crore (Rs 20 million).
The CJI said tax judiciary plays a very important role in resource mobilisation of the country and expressed concern over pendency of cases.
The judge gave the ruling while dismissing a petition filed by the Commissioner of Customs. The court upheld the Customs, Excise and Services Tax Appellate Tribunal's earlier judgement, stating that the interpretation by the tribunal was in consonance with the Computers (Additional Duty) Rules, 2004.
The Commissioner of Customs had confiscated the goods claiming that the body massagers could be used as adult sex toys and such items are prohibited for import.
In a setback to NALCO and Hindustan Lever Ltd, a tax tribunal has quashed their plea challenging the government's decision to impose anti-dumping duty on imports of caustic soda.
Customs and excise duty rates have been amended mainly to promote Make in India.
Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Friday said as many as 37,506 tax dispute cases were pending before various Income Tax Appellate Tribunals having a financial implication of Rs 1.45 lakh crore at end March 2015.
Six years after the rollout of the biggest indirect tax reform in India, Goods and Services Tax (GST) revenue of Rs 1.5 lakh crore every month has become a new normal and tax officers are focusing on dealing with fraudsters who are adopting newer modus operandi to game the system, causing loss to the exchequer. To apprehend black sheep, who operate as syndicates and create fake entities on the basis of forged documents to claim input tax credit (ITC), tax officers have started using data analytics, artifical intelligence and machine learning aiming to curb evasion, which was over Rs 3 lakh crore since inception of GST. It was over Rs 1 lakh crore in 2022-23. Thinktank Global Trade Research Initiative (GTRI) said the most critical pending GST reform is upgradation of GST Network to prevent fake supplies and fraudulent claims of Input Tax Credit (ITC).
'Under this government, tax laws have become more draconian, and the government itself is setting stiff, unrealistic targets for tax officials, who have got more powers to harass us,' points out Debashis Basu.
Simplicity will make the Budget investment-friendly
Has the Modi government been more at odds with institutions than other governments? There is no doubt that there have been more run-ins. While the RBI and CBI cases have drawn attention, there have been others, less publicised, Subhomoy Bhattacharjee points out.
The sluggish legal system in India makes it extremely difficult for law-enforcing agencies in the ministry of finance to punish violations of foreign exchange laws. Unfortunately, it is not just FEMA. The Prevention of Money Laundering Act too has significant infirmities, say Paranjoy Guha Thakurta and Pranati Mehra.
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