Pass-through of input tax credit under Section 171 requires builders to adjust pricing and refund denied benefits to buyers.
Section 171 requires suppliers to pass incremental Input Tax Credit benefits to buyers by commensurate reduction in price computed at the level of each tax invoice. DGAP compared pre-GST and post-GST ITC percentages, identified an increase in ITC available to the developer, and computed the aggregate amount of benefit not passed to purchasers. The Authority directed price reductions, refunds with interest, monitoring by Commissioners, and noted ongoing obligation to pass any future ITC benefits, with potential penalty exposure for contravention. (AI Summary)

Tax holiday for eligible startups provides a three year corporate rebate within a seven year window to support early growth.
Eligibility requires recent incorporation in India, turnover below the prescribed cap, innovation/IP focus, no business reconstruction, certification by an Inter Ministerial Board, and specified entity forms. Principal tax benefits include a three year tax holiday within a seven year block, long term capital gains exemption for investment in notified funds with a multi year lock in, exemption for investments made above fair market value by certain investors, extension of investment linked long term capital gains exemption to startups with share and asset retention conditions, and relaxation of shareholding continuity rules for carryforward of losses. (AI Summary)

Notice and hearing required under GST transit provisions: service on the driver is insufficient before imposing penalty.
Section 129 permits detention or seizure of goods in transit but requires the proper officer to issue a notice specifying tax and penalty and to afford the person concerned an opportunity of being heard; service on the driver or person-in-charge is not a substitute for serving the person on whom penalty is to be imposed, administrative circulars or forms cannot override this statutory requirement, and any penalty determination must follow personal notice, a hearing and a reasoned order. (AI Summary)

Profiteering: claim fails where no GST was charged before or after the rate change, so no benefit to pass on.
Investigation into alleged profiteering assessed whether the GST rate reduction applied to the specific book and whether the supplier passed any tax benefit to buyers. The book was classified as a printed book and the supplier did not charge GST on the base price before or after the rate change; consequently, no tax benefit existed to be passed on. The authority flagged absence of HSN codes on invoices for further jurisdictional review of classification and invoice compliance. (AI Summary)

Tax dispute settlement scheme reduces litigation through defined payment tiers and waivers for interest and penalty.
The scheme permits settlement of specified direct tax disputes pending before appellate and judicial forums by filing a declaration and paying a defined portion of disputed tax or disputed penalty, interest or fee, with differentiated payment rates for taxpayers and the Department and for payments made before or after a notified deadline; successful declarations result in withdrawal of litigation and grant of immunity from prosecution and further penalty or interest, subject to stated exclusions and administrative safeguards including refund of any excess and delegated rule making for implementation. (AI Summary)

GST compensation shortfall prompts transfers, tighter enforcement, IT governance reforms and procedural measures to strengthen compliance.
Fiscal stress from a GST compensation cess shortfall prompted transfers from prior surpluses and a policy preference to avoid frequent rate changes. Administrative reforms include forming a GSTN Consultative Committee, designating the GST database as a protected system under the Information Technology Act with authorised access rules, and deploying an application for central-state intelligence sharing to target evasion. Procedural measures comprise a new SOP for exporters' refund verification and escalation, extension of Form GST TRAN 1 filing for affected registrants, staggered GSTR 3B due dates for small taxpayers, and settlements under the Sabka Vishwas scheme. (AI Summary)

GST annual return deadline: taxpayers must appoint auditors and complete reconciliations before the revised filing cutoff.
CBIC extended the GST annual return filing deadline for FY 2018-19 beyond the statutory date under Sec.44(1) of the CGST Act; taxpayers must treat the revised date as the operative timeline. Taxpayers should immediately appoint or confirm a GST auditor, commence GSTR 2A and outward supplies reconciliations, and coordinate audit scheduling-benefiting from simplified return formats-so filings are completed before the new return and e invoicing regime takes effect. (AI Summary)

Institutional arbitration promotes designated arbitral institutions, streamlining appointments, fees, and confidentiality for commercial disputes.
Arbitration occurs as institutional, ad-hoc or statutory processes with differing appointment, procedural and remedial consequences. Institutional arbitration uses designated institutions governed by rules, graded and promoted by an Arbitration Council; courts may designate institutions or panels and institutions set fees and timetables, subject to exceptions for international cases. Ad-hoc arbitration is party-managed with courts appointing arbitrators when parties fail to agree. Statutory arbitration arises from specific enactments that prescribe appointment and finality, often excluding application of the Limitation Act. (AI Summary)

Startup tax deduction reform: window extended and turnover threshold increased, yet complexity and eligibility limits undermine effectiveness.
Section 80-IAC provides a tax deduction for eligible start-ups for a limited set of assessment years but restricts eligibility to companies and LLPs, conditions access on turnover limits and certification, and requires claiming the deduction for three consecutive profitable years. The Finance Bill proposes to extend the window during which the deduction may be claimed and to raise the turnover threshold, yet these changes do not address deeper issues: complexity, profit based conditioning, exclusion of individuals and proprietorships, and burdensome administrative requirements that hinder the incentive's purpose. (AI Summary)

Input Tax Credit denial for lift installations as immovable property under GST, blocking credit against maintenance charges.
The bench treated the supply, installation and commissioning of a lift as a works contract that creates an immovable property because the lift becomes an integral, permanent fixture of the building. Relying on precedent, it held the lift is not plant and machinery for input tax credit purposes and that GST paid on such replacement/installation is covered by the blocked credits restriction, precluding the cooperative society from claiming ITC against maintenance charges. (AI Summary)

Declaration without Appeal: allow taxpayers to settle appealable income tax orders by declaration even if no appeal is filed.
Recommends broadening the scheme to allow declarations without requiring prior filing of appeals, including (a) cases where an appeal was pending on the cut off but an order is later issued, and (b) cases where an appealable order is issued before the declaration deadline but within the limitation period; proposes redefining "appellant" to include both pending appellants and persons with time remaining to file appeals, and "specified date" to fix the cut off for pending appeals while the declaration deadline governs orders issued thereafter. (AI Summary)

Plant and machinery classification denied for breakwater; GST input tax credit not available for construction services.
The authority examined whether a breakwater with interlocking acropods and rock armour fixed to foundations qualifies as plant and machinery under the Explanation to section 17(6). That provision covers apparatus, equipment and machinery fixed by foundation and used in making outward supplies but excludes land, buildings and other civil structures. The breakwater was held to be a civil structure whose primary purpose is to facilitate receipt of raw material (safe berthing), not to effect outward supply, and therefore does not qualify as plant and machinery for input tax credit. (AI Summary)

Mandatory electronic payment acceptance for large businesses under new rules; prohibition on transaction charges and penalties for non-compliance.
Section 269SU requires persons above the turnover threshold to provide three specified electronic payment facilities-RuPay debit card, UPI, and UPI QR Code-and prohibits transaction or other charges on payments made through those prescribed modes, backed by an amendment in the Payment and Settlement Systems framework; failure to operationalise the facilities by the compliance deadline attracts a daily penalty for each day of default. (AI Summary)

Intercorporate dividend deduction appears drafted broadly, potentially extending beyond holding-subsidiary dividends and creating mismatch.
The draft s.80M restores a deduction intended to remove cascading dividend taxation but is drafted to permit any domestic company to deduct dividend income received from any other domestic company, limited only by dividends the deducting company distributed on or before the prescribed "due date" (defined as one month prior to the filing deadline), and prohibits double claim of the same distributed amount in another year; the draft omits any explicit holding-subsidiary limitation described in the Budget speech, creating a scope mismatch. (AI Summary)

GST compliance reforms expand electronic invoicing, Aadhaar verification and penalties for fraudulent input tax credit to curb tax evasion.
The budget strengthens GST compliance via a simplified return regime, electronic invoicing, Aadhaar-based verification, automated refunds and AI-driven analytics to detect invoice and input tax credit mismatches; it expands criminal and penalty provisions for fraudulent input tax credit and fake invoices and provides retrospective amendments to govern time and manner for availment of credits and refunds. (AI Summary)

Tax dispute settlement scheme offers waiver of interest and penalty for payment of disputed tax by specified deadline.
The scheme permits settling pending tax disputes by payment of the disputed tax amount with waiver of interest and penalty if paid by the initial deadline; later payments attract an increased percentage on disputed tax and higher percentages on disputed penalty, interest and fees. Declarants must file a prescribed declaration; the Designated Authority determines the payable amount, issues a certificate, and payment within the stipulated period produces a conclusive order and deemed withdrawal of specified appeals. Certain assessments, prosecutions, offshore undisclosed income and other specified categories are excluded. (AI Summary)

Valuation of development rights under GST: prescribed first-sale method governs value and affects liability where no sales occur.
Valuation for construction services under JDA is governed by a notificational first-sale based method deeming value equal to amounts charged for similar units in the project to independent buyers, with deduction for land value; transfer of development rights is similarly valued by reference to amounts charged by the promoter to independent buyers (permitting cross-project comparison and lacking an express land-value deduction); absent any sale (eg, lease-only projects) the prescribed valuation may be unavailable, raising risks that levy fails and prompting conservative options like adopting rule-based valuation or paying under protest. (AI Summary)

Input tax credit on demonstration vehicles available where capitalized and used in furtherance of vehicle-supply business, allowing set-off.
Demonstration motor vehicles that are capitalized in the dealer's books and used to provide trial runs qualify as capital goods used in the furtherance of business and therefore entitle the dealer to input tax credit under Section 16(1); the exclusion in Section 17(5)(a) does not bar credit where such vehicles are subsequently sold as a taxable supply, so ITC on demo vehicles can be availed and set off against output tax payable. (AI Summary)

Scrutiny selection: prioritize returns with indicia of understatement and ensure compliance with notice time limits and verification checks.
Selection for income tax scrutiny targets returns with indicia of understatement-large cash dealings, unexplained bank credits, unsecured loans, capital additions, mismatches between tax audit reports and returns-and may be effected manually by the Assessing Officer or automatically via the department's CASS. On selecting or reopening a case the Assessing Officer must respect notice time limits and undertake a detailed verification: check cash transaction rules, TDS applicability and discharge, vouchers for expenses, reconciliation of turnover with GST and bank statements, genuineness of loans and capital introductions, accounting or stock valuation changes, valuation of investments, long standing receivables/payables, and compliance with income computation standards and entitlement to claimed deductions. (AI Summary)

TDS on sales and services: unified withholding with threshold-triggered application and elective advance tax for organised payees.
Proposes a unified TDS regime on sales and services consolidating multiple withholding provisions, with differential low rates, exclusion of GST from gross value, and a threshold-triggered rule that, once crossed, makes withholding applicable to the entire amount from the start of the financial year. Recommends allowing organised payees to elect to pay advance tax instead of being subject to TDS/TCS, thereby exempting large/organized taxpayers from withholding while targeting TDS/TCS at salaries and unorganised small-sector payees. (AI Summary)