Revenue deductibility, no-exempt-income disallowance and guarantee benchmarking preserve real-estate developer's interest, forex-loss and book-profit treatment.
Interest incurred by a real-estate developer is deductible as revenue expenditure rather than capitalised to work-in-progress where consistent treatment under Section 36(1)(iii) continues and facts remain unchanged. No Section 14A disallowance, or related book-profit adjustment, arises where no exempt income is earned; the explanation effective from 1 April 2022 does not apply to the relevant assessment year. Foreign-exchange loss on monetary items is recognised in profit and loss and cannot be included in inventory or project cost. Corporate-guarantee commission is benchmarked at arm's length under an interest-saving approach considering creditworthiness, tenure, currency, lending comparables and shared interest benefit.
Issues: (i) Whether interest expenditure incurred by a real-estate developer was deductible as revenue expenditure or required to be capitalised to work-in-progress; (ii) Whether disallowance in the absence of exempt income could be made under Section 14A and added while computing book profit; (iii) Whether foreign-exchange loss on monetary items was deductible as revenue expenditure or capitalisable to project cost; (iv) Whether the arm's-length corporate-guarantee commission was correctly determined at 0.3523% under the interest-saving approach.
Issue (i): Whether interest expenditure incurred by a real-estate developer was deductible as revenue expenditure or required to be capitalised to work-in-progress.
Analysis: Consistent decisions in the assessee's own earlier and subsequent years, applying the governing principle under Section 36(1)(iii), had recognised the interest expenditure as deductible and not includible in the cost of work-in-progress. No change in facts or circumstances justified departure from that position.
Conclusion: The interest expenditure is allowable as a deduction and cannot be capitalised to work-in-progress, in favour of the assessee.
Issue (ii): Whether disallowance in the absence of exempt income could be made under Section 14A and added while computing book profit.
Analysis: As no exempt income was earned during the relevant year, no expenditure disallowance could arise under Section 14A. The subsequently inserted explanation effective from 1 April 2022 was held inapplicable to the assessment year in question. Consequently, no corresponding addition could be made in computing book profit under Section 115JB.
Conclusion: No disallowance under Section 14A or corresponding addition to book profit is permissible where no exempt income is earned, in favour of the assessee.
Issue (iii): Whether foreign-exchange loss on monetary items was deductible as revenue expenditure or capitalisable to project cost.
Analysis: Earlier and subsequent decisions concerning the assessee treated foreign-exchange fluctuation as relating to monetary items. Such items cannot form part of inventory cost, and the resulting loss is required to be recognised in the profit and loss account.
Conclusion: The foreign-exchange loss is allowable as revenue expenditure and is not capitalisable to project cost, in favour of the assessee.
Issue (iv): Whether the arm's-length corporate-guarantee commission was correctly determined at 0.3523% under the interest-saving approach.
Analysis: The benchmarking based on the interest-saving approach took account of the associated enterprise's creditworthiness, tenure, currency, comparable guaranteed and non-guaranteed lending transactions, and equal sharing of the interest benefit. The same guarantee instrument and methodology had been upheld in the assessee's other years, with no material change shown.
Conclusion: The corporate-guarantee commission determined at 0.3523% is sustained as being at arm's length, in favour of the assessee.
Final Conclusion: The deductions for interest and foreign-exchange loss, the absence of Section 14A adjustment and consequential book-profit addition, and the corporate-guarantee benchmarking at 0.3523% remain sustained.