Reassessment procedure cannot be triggered solely by cash deposits; requires reason to believe that income escaped assessment.
Reassessment under section 147 cannot be based solely on reported cash deposits; there must be a reason to believe that income escaped assessment rather than mere suspicion. Reopening is vitiated where the officer records incorrect foundational facts (such as non-filing of return) or relies only on bank deposits that may represent legitimate non-taxable receipts. Administrative reliance on outdated reporting thresholds produces unnecessary litigation, and the article urges revision of prescribed limits and more focused information collection to avoid mechanical reassessments. (AI Summary)

Pre-deposit from electronic credit ledger permissibility affects admissibility of GST appeals and ledger-payment practice.
The article examines whether the statutory pre-deposit for admission of a GST appeal can be discharged from the electronic credit ledger rather than the electronic cash ledger. It summarises the pre-deposit requirement, ledger-payment provisions distinguishing electronic cash and electronic credit ledgers, a High Court ruling disallowing credit-ledger debits for pre-deposit, and contrasting tribunal decisions and CBIC circulars and form entries indicating permissibility of using electronic credit ledger balances for tax liabilities. (AI Summary)

Blocking of electronic credit ledger limited to one year; blocked input tax credit must be released once disallowing conditions cease.
Rule 86A authorises a jurisdictional officer to disallow debit of amounts from the electronic credit ledger where there are recorded reasons to believe input tax credit was fraudulently availed or is ineligible-for example, credits based on invoices from non existent suppliers, without receipt of goods or services, or where tax on the supply remains unpaid. The Commissioner or authorised officer may restore debit when satisfied conditions cease to exist. The restriction automatically lapses after one year from imposition and negative ledger balances cannot be used to discharge liabilities. (AI Summary)

GST liability on accommodation units: multi-room units and dormitories treated as taxable supplies, not exempt rooms.
The authorities treated composite accommodation units and whole dormitories let as single units as taxable supplies, excluding them from the exemption applicable to low tariff "rooms"; food and beverages supplied at subsidised rates are taxable; provision of space without consideration attracts GST only if the trust and the supplier are related persons; intermediary or booking services are taxable unless all conditions of being a pure agent are satisfied. (AI Summary)

Cash deposit additions should not apply where deposits are identifiable as third party funds and paid onward as shown by evidence.
Where bank cash deposits are traceable to receipts collected on behalf of third parties and are corroborated by documentary evidence showing subsequent payments to those parties, such deposits are not the assessee's income and additions treating them as unexplained income are inappropriate. Assessing officers must consider commercial realities, trade practices and the scale of the assessee's operations, applying a reasonableness test rather than demanding documentary formality suited to large organizations. (AI Summary)

Startup seed funding eligibility expanded under scheme; incubators to disburse grants and convertible instruments to startups.
The Startup India Seed Fund Scheme provides milestone-linked financial assistance to early-stage, DPIIT-recognized startups via eligible incubators selected and monitored by an Experts Advisory Committee. Incubators must meet operational, capacity and staffing criteria and form seed management committees to select startups through an open process without charging applicants. Seed support is available as milestone-based grants for proof of concept and prototypes and as debt/convertible instruments for commercialization and scaling; each startup may receive grant and debt/convertible support once, governed by a legal agreement and audited utilization reporting. (AI Summary)

Service of tax order: treating an order as made before service risks undermining limitation and natural justice principles.
The article contends that under Section 263 an order is not effectively "made" until it is issued beyond the control of the authority and communicated to the assessee and concerned officers; mere signing or internal dispatch does not satisfy the requirement. Reliance on Kerala High Court authority and tribunal findings supports treating limitation as running from issuance/communication. The author criticises a recent Supreme Court acceptance of departmental dispatch assertions without addressing settled precedent or tribunal fact-findings and urges review to protect natural justice and legal certainty. (AI Summary)

Taxability of development rights: transactions styled as leases during construction treated as taxable works contract supplies under GST.
The agreements styled as leases for flats entered during construction, featuring substantial advance and slab-wise payments prior to possession and clauses inconsistent with normal leases, were characterised not as renting of residential dwellings but as agreements for construction akin to works contracts. Consequently the supply was treated as a composite supply of works contract and held taxable under GST rather than falling within renting/leasing of residential accommodation. (AI Summary)

Input tax credit availability guidance: GSTN advisory clarifies GSTR-2B generation and ITC implications for recipients.
GSTN advisories state that Form GSTR-2B is an automated monthly ITC statement generated on the 14th of the succeeding month from supplier filings and import data; invoices filed after the recipient's GSTR-3B due date for a financial year will be reflected as 'ITC Not Available' in GSTR-2B and will not auto-populate into recipients' GSTR-3B or GSTR-9, making timely reporting by suppliers critical to ITC availment and exposing improper availment to enforcement action. (AI Summary)

Intermediary services are ancillary facilitation of a main supply; place of supply rules determine applicable GST treatment.
The document defines an intermediary as a person who arranges or facilitates supply of goods, services or securities between parties but excludes suppliers acting on their own account. It distinguishes the main supply between principals from the ancillary supply of facilitation constituting intermediary services, explains that subcontractors providing the contracted service to the contractor are not intermediaries, and applies these principles through examples and sectoral clarifications on place-of-supply and GST consequences. (AI Summary)

Composite supply: piped cooking gas treated as service due to bundling with facility and property management services.
AAR found piped cooking gas supplied by the applicant to apartment owners is naturally bundled with facility and property management services because all owners pay a fixed piped gas bank connection charge and share pipeline maintenance costs; consequently the supply is a composite supply whose principal supply is facility and management services, and the gas component is classified as a supply of services under the composite-supply rule. (AI Summary)

Interim compensation under negotiable instruments law now treated as mandatory at specified stages, despite statutory 'may'.
Section 143A authorises courts trying dishonour-of-cheque offences to order interim compensation-capped at twenty percent-at defined stages, to be paid within prescribed periods subject to limited extension; mandates repayment with bank-rate interest on acquittal; and directs that any final fine or compensation be reduced by amounts paid or recovered as interim compensation. (AI Summary)

Value of supply includes employer EPF and ESI contributions, so GST applies to the full billed amount.
The AAR ruled that the value of supply for manpower services includes employer EPF and ESI contributions and related wage components, so GST is payable on the total billed amount. Only items falling within the statutory exclusions qualify for deduction; employer contributions paid by the supplier for its own employees do not qualify as reimbursements or pure agent pass-throughs in the absence of factual and documentary support. The ruling aligns with prior authority treating billed wages and service components as part of transaction value. (AI Summary)

Right to personal hearing: faceless assessment set aside and one-day hearing directed to secure principles of natural justice.
Faceless assessment was quashed and remitted because denial of a personal hearing breached the principles of natural justice. The High Court directed the Assessing Officer to grant one day of personal hearing with advance notice within a specified short window, allowed the assessee to produce documents and explanations on that day, prohibited further personal hearing requests by the assessee, and permitted the revenue to pass a fresh assessment thereafter in accordance with law. (AI Summary)

Promotional goods as separate supplies, allowing input tax credit where sold at nominal price under eligibility schemes.
Promotional items sold at nominal price after retailers meet eligibility under a hosiery sales scheme are separate taxable supplies, not composite or mixed supplies; each item attracts the rate applicable to it and input tax credit on promotional goods need not be reversed under Section 17(5)(h). The AAR relied on separate invoicing, retailer choice to accept the offer, and the presence of nominal consideration, but warned valuation may be contested in different factual scenarios. (AI Summary)

Bank service charges imposed without transparent justification undermine consumer fairness and require regulatory verification.
Banks levy application-related and recurring "inspection" fees on retail borrowers without reimbursement or demonstrable inspections, and routinely fail to provide signed annual certificates of principal and interest despite digital capabilities. Electronic collections for school fees also attract charges that persist despite operational savings from digitisation. These practices operate as de facto revenue streams with limited transparency and consent, prompting a call for regulatory review of fee reasonableness, mandatory verification of incurred costs, and requirements for proactive provision of accounting certificates to customers. (AI Summary)

Pre-deposit for appeal under GST is not output tax and cannot be paid from input tax credit ledger.
The mandatory pre-deposit for filing an appeal is a procedural precondition distinct from output tax and cannot be discharged from the Electronic Credit Ledger; utilization of input tax credit is limited to purposes prescribed by the statute and payments such as the appeal pre-deposit must be made from the Electronic Cash Ledger in the prescribed manner. (AI Summary)

Mandatory rounding off of financial statement figures now required; rules need finer slabs and uniformity to aid comparability.
Amendment to Schedule III makes rounding off figures in financial statements mandatory by reference to total income and requires uniform use of a chosen measurement unit. Two broad slabs are prescribed with wide discretion over rounding units, which can impair readability and inter firm comparability-particularly for companies with very small or very large figures. The author recommends multiple calibrated slabs, restricted permissible units per slab (favoring full amounts or crores for many Indian companies), and optional alternate presentations for foreign readers to improve clarity and comparability. (AI Summary)

Suo motu jurisdiction affirmed for environmental tribunal when statutory prerequisites are met, subject to natural justice.
The NGT's statutory scheme vests it with wide original, appellate and remedial powers including moulding relief and regulating procedure; where jurisdictional prerequisites of civil character, substantial environmental question and applicability of scheduled enactments are present the Tribunal may initiate suo motu proceedings (including on media communications) but must accord notice and respect principles of natural justice while confining action to its environmental domain. (AI Summary)

GST rate and classification clarifications issued to standardise taxability and documentation, alongside system reform recommendations.
The CBIC issued two circulars clarifying GST taxability, rate, classification and exemptions for specified goods and services per GST Council recommendations, covering items from agricultural products and pharmaceutical and laboratory goods to a range of services including cloud kitchens, satellite launch services, toll overloading charges and contract manufacturing for alcoholic liquor, and specifying documentation conditions for concessional import rates; a Group of Ministers has been tasked to recommend GST system reforms addressing IT tools, evasion sources, data driven compliance and administrative coordination. (AI Summary)