E-invoicing requirement expanded, triggering new compliance, return automation and heightened scrutiny over refunds and compensation funding.
The note describes administrative and compliance GST measures: CBIC's Ready Reckoner for officers; introduction of e-invoicing with revised GST INV-1 schema and mandatory IRNs (with SEZ exemption and QR code rules); proposed automation and linking of GST returns including GSTR-2B and auto-populated GSTR-3B to improve Input Tax Credit flow; heightened scrutiny of exporter IGST refunds while safeguarding genuine claimants; and fiscal dispute over the compensation cess with states seeking further funding or borrowing. (AI Summary)

GST profiteering: supplier failed to pass on reduced tax rate to recipients, triggering deposit and interest obligations.
Determination that a supplier failed to pass on a statutory GST rate reduction: investigation found increased base prices negating the benefit despite asserted MRP and base price revisions and communications; Authority quantified net higher sales realization as profiteering and ordered price adjustment compliance, deposit into consumer welfare funds where recipients were unidentifiable, interest on sums realized, and supervisory monitoring by tax commissioners. (AI Summary)

Term sheet binding effect can create price sensitive information triggering insider trading compliance and window closure duties.
The document explains that a term sheet typically records non binding commercial intentions but may contain explicit binding clauses; its content-valuation, instrument, investor rights, board composition, use of funds, contingencies and information rights-directs due diligence and definitive documentation. It notes regulatory treatment where signing a term sheet was considered to create unpublished price sensitive information, implicating insider trading compliance such as trading window closure by the compliance officer, and emphasizes that drafting and factual context determine whether a term sheet has binding legal or regulatory effect. (AI Summary)

Proxy advisor standards: procedural guidelines require disclosure, conflict management and client-company simultaneous report sharing policies.
SEBI's procedural guidelines require proxy advisors to adopt and annually review voting recommendation policies, disclose methodologies and circumstances when recommendations are withheld, notify clients promptly of factual errors or material revisions, share reports simultaneously with clients and companies with a website disclosure of the sharing policy, include company comments as addenda within defined timelines, and clearly disclose and manage conflicts of interest on every advisory document, including safeguards and procedures to mitigate conflicts from other business activities. (AI Summary)

Central KYC adoption: centralised KYC repository intended to eliminate duplicate verifications but requires regulatory mandate for effective use.
Central KYC (cKYC), maintained by CERSAI, centralises customer identity records and issues a unique KYC Identification Number (KIN) to enable interoperable access by regulated financial entities, reduce repetitive in person verification and paperwork, and classify accounts by risk (normal, simplified/low risk, small); however, operational glitches, uneven adoption by financial institutions and branch level re KYC practices have produced duplication and wasted resources, prompting calls for regulatory mandates, enforcement, and inter regulatory coordination to ensure comprehensive data coverage and active use of the registry. (AI Summary)

Substantial Question of Law: Supreme Court decided appeal despite High Court's failure to formulate SQL, raising procedural compliance concerns.
The Rajasthan High Court summarily dismissed an appeal from the Appellate Tribunal without formulating or answering the Substantial Questions of Law presented in the memorandum of appeal, and the Supreme Court proceeded to decide issues on facts and law despite that absence; the author contends this is noncompliant with the statutory appellate procedure and established jurisprudence and argues the matter was fit for restoration to the High Court. (AI Summary)

Transport subsidy characterisation: purposive test determines whether industrial incentives are capital receipts or taxable revenue.
Whether a transport subsidy is a capital receipt or revenue receipt turns on the purpose of the scheme: incentives aimed at establishing or expanding industry or offsetting locational disadvantages are capital in nature, while payments intended to augment ordinary business profits are revenue receipts; accounting entries do not control this legal characterisation. (AI Summary)

Section 40(a)(ia) clarifies that TDS disallowance applies to payments whether paid or payable, not only unpaid amounts.
Section 40(a)(ia) applies to sums both paid and payable, describing payments that attract TDS obligations rather than distinguishing amounts based on payment status; the Supreme Court affirmed prior interpretations in P.M.S. Diesels and Palam Gas Service, rejected arguments limiting the provision to unpaid sums, and held that references to the definition of "paid" in other provisions or to decisions concerning different statutory contexts are not helpful. (AI Summary)

Annual FLA Return filing requirement: companies must submit mandated returns on foreign liabilities and assets, with penalties for noncompliance.
Companies holding foreign assets or liabilities or with outstanding FDI/ODI must file the annual Foreign Liabilities and Assets (FLA) Return electronically in prescribed Excel format; provisional returns may be filed if audited accounts are not ready, with revised returns after audit. Exemptions cover entities with no outstanding inward/outward FDI, only share application money, transfers by non-resident shareholders leaving no outstanding investments, and non-repatriable share issues. Partnership firms and similar entities must use an RBI dummy CIN to file. Non-filing attracts penalties, daily fines for continuing contraventions, and possible confiscation. (AI Summary)

Protection of uncultivable hills: construction prohibited under preservation law, notices issued but enforcement remains pending.
Construction has resumed in Raisina hills despite its classification as gair mumkin pahar, where the Punjab Land Preservation Act and a Union environment notification prohibit tree cutting and construction; show-cause and demolition notices were issued but demolition action has not been taken, while pollution control authorities say notices were served and an NGT-linked District Level Committee was formed for removal and forest restoration. (AI Summary)

Place of supply rules for intermediary services upheld as taxable in India when the supplier is located in India, sustaining GST levy.
The petition challenged Section 13(8)(b) read with Section 2(13) and Section 8(1) of the IGST Act as unconstitutional for treating intermediary services as having place of supply in India. The court found intermediaries who merely facilitate transactions are not exporters under the statutory definitions, that invoicing abroad and receipt of foreign exchange do not convert the service into export, and that Section 13(8)(b) legitimately fixes place of supply for intermediary services. Consequently, the provisions were held not to be ultra vires or unconstitutional. (AI Summary)

Taxability of joint development agreements: completion certificate timing governs landowner capital gains and deemed consideration.
Receipts to developers under a Joint Development Agreement are taxed as business income, while landowners' receipts as shares in built-up area or cash are treated as capital gains when the land/building is a capital asset. Finance Act amendments defer chargeability for individual and HUF landowners under registered specified agreements to the previous year in which the competent authority issues the completion certificate, with stamp duty value on that date (plus cash received) deemed as full consideration; transfers before the certificate trigger capital gains on transfer. A separate TDS obligation requires developers to withhold tax on monetary payments to resident individual/HUF landowners, and practical issues persist on indexation, reinvestment timelines, and timing of taxation of monetary consideration. (AI Summary)

GST input tax credit time limit restricts claims on invoices or debit notes to annual return or September return.
The statutory cut off for claiming input tax credit applies to credits claimed on the basis of a tax invoice or debit note and is the earlier of filing the relevant annual return or the due date for the September return following the financial year to which the invoice or related debit note pertains. Documents such as self invoices, bills of entry and ISD invoices are not tax invoices for this purpose and thus fall outside the Section 16(4) time bar. Reclaimed credits previously reversed are excluded from this time limit. (AI Summary)

Goods and Services Tax reform: implementation gaps undermine uniformity and demand digital, adjudicatory, and compliance reforms
The Article evaluates GST as a consumption-based tax founded on Supply and Place of Supply, with a seamless Input Tax Credit, digital administration, and invoice-matching intended to create one national market. It identifies implementation failures-divergent Advance Rulings, lack of an appellate tribunal, GSTN technical glitches, delayed refunds, invoice fraud and evasion, and questionable anti-profiteering procedures-and recommends audits, e-invoicing, remedies for inverted duty structures, faster refunds, a compliance-rating mechanism, and strengthened anti-evasion and adjudicatory institutions to secure GST's objectives. (AI Summary)

Aggregate turnover inclusion of exempt interest income affects GST registration threshold and must be combined with taxable receipts.
Interest receipts, though exempt from GST under notifications for services by way of extending deposits, loans or advances, must be aggregated with taxable receipts to compute aggregate turnover under section 2(6) of the CGST Act for determining GST registration threshold. AAR decisions applying the statutory definition held that exempt interest income (PPF, bank savings, personal loans) is included in aggregate turnover despite no GST liability on that interest; dissenting commentary argues non business receipts should be excluded. (AI Summary)

Import of software as service-reverse charge GST applies for electronic supplies; physical media treated as goods attracting import GST.
Pre-packaged software supplied on physical media is classified as goods for customs and GST purposes and attracts import duties and IGST as goods. Software supplied by download or electronic means, including temporary transfers or permitting use of intellectual property rights, is treated as imported services; such imports are taxable as interstate supplies under the IGST framework and give rise to recipient liability under the reverse charge mechanism, with applicable service classification for GST accounting. R&D cess and RBI/compliance formalities may also apply. (AI Summary)

Anti profiteering in real estate: absence of tax reduction or net ITC gain means no obligation to pass benefits to buyers.
Both cases centered on whether a reduction in tax rate or an increased net input tax credit obligated developers to pass benefits under Section 171. Investigations compared pre and post GST effective tax rates and ITC as a percentage of turnover, and found in one case that the effective post GST rate was higher and ITC proportion fell, and in the other that no CENVAT/ITC had been availed. On these facts the Authority concluded no qualifying benefit arose under Section 171. (AI Summary)

GST classification for hand sanitizers affirmed; misclassification targeted and compliance plus electronic filing measures reinforced
CBIC restored the portal's deemed approval mechanism for pending registration applications with specified cut off dates and resumption timelines, provided an interim appellate-channel route to restore rejected revocation-of-registration applications under the Removal of Difficulty order, clarified that sanitizers are subject to the standard GST rate to avoid inverted duties and domestic disadvantage, reaffirmed that State grant of alcoholic liquor licences is outside GST while other licence fees remain taxable, and advanced administrative measures including e invoicing rollout, GSTR 4 filing on GSTN, and a CBIC-CBDT data exchange MOU to strengthen compliance. (AI Summary)

Statutory timeline for refund scrutiny: failure to issue deficiency or acknowledgment deprives officer of later objections and triggers interest.
Failure by the tax authority to issue either an acknowledgment or a deficiency memo within the prescribed statutory period causes the refund application to be presumed complete and deprives the authority of the right to raise belated deficiencies; issuing a deficiency memo after that period improperly extends processing timelines, forces re-submission as a fresh application, can time-bar claims and impairs the taxpayer's entitlement to interest from the original filing date. (AI Summary)

Arm's length commercial expediency: parties' terms upheld, revenue cannot recharacterise non compete payments as sale consideration.
Non-compete payments legitimately agreed at arm's length and allocable separately from share sale consideration must be respected for tax characterisation; revenue cannot recharacterise such payments as part of sale consideration or substitute its view of commercial expediency absent evidence of sham, and a later statutory amendment taxing non-competition receipts does not operate retrospectively. (AI Summary)