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Embedded profit taxation limits additions on unaccounted property receipts and accommodation purchases where underlying business activity is accepted.
Undisclosed real-estate sale receipts constitute gross collections, so where no evidence shows that corresponding costs or investments were also undisclosed, taxability is confined to the embedded profit; the prior profit estimate was accepted as adequate. Likewise, non-genuine purchase invoices do not justify disallowing the full purchase value when material consumption, construction activity, sales and book results remain accepted; only the grey-market saving or embedded profit may be estimated. Seized electronic data certified under the Evidence Act and corroborated by unretracted search statements remain admissible and reliable. A delayed, unsupported retraction does not displace their evidentiary value.
Amended tax-inclusive income computation brings unpaid customer-collected indirect taxes within Section 43B despite no profit-and-loss routing.
Amended tax-inclusive income computation requires taxes, duties, cess and fees incurred in relation to goods or services to be included when calculating business income. Consequently, GST and service-tax liabilities collected from customers and paid after the return-filing date remain subject to disallowance under section 43B even if not routed through the profit and loss account. Interest on delayed remittance of TDS is treated as penal and not deductible as business expenditure. Commission-expense discrepancies require reconciliation, cash visa-fee payments require verification of each individual payment for cash-payment restrictions, and differences between declared receipts and Form 26AS receipts require reconciliation with books and supporting evidence.
Reassessment jurisdiction fails on incorrect facts, while disclosed investment sale proceeds cannot be treated as unexplained credits.
Reassessment jurisdiction requires a reason to believe founded on correct facts and independent verification. Recorded reasons based on the incorrect premise that only summary processing occurred, despite a completed scrutiny assessment, cannot be cured as a clerical defect. Similarly, unverified Investigation Wing information unsupported by corresponding bank credits does not establish a valid basis for reopening. Sale proceeds of investments previously recorded in the books and balance sheet, received through banking channels, are not loans, deposits, share application money, or unexplained cash credits. Such disclosed investment realisations cannot be added as unexplained credits.
Section 80G deductions for qualifying CSR donations cannot be denied merely because the expenditure forms part of CSR obligations.
Section 80G may allow a deduction for qualifying donations even when they form part of corporate social responsibility expenditure. Explanation 2 to section 37(1) disallows CSR expenditure in computing business income but does not impose a general bar on a specific donation deduction, except for donations expressly excluded under section 80G. Where statutory conditions are otherwise satisfied, CSR character alone does not defeat the claim. Given divergent judicial views, allowing the deduction constitutes a plausible and legally sustainable view. Revision under section 263 requires an assessment order to be both erroneous and prejudicial to Revenue interests and cannot replace one permissible view with another; revision was therefore invalid.
Section 12AB registration requires cogent evidence of non-genuine charitable activity; related-party rent alone cannot justify refusal.
Section 12AB registration requires a prima facie enquiry into charitable objects, the genuineness of actual or proposed activities, and material legal compliance; it is not a full assessment of every receipt or expenditure. Verified charitable medical activities, including eye camps, patient treatment, medical equipment and hospital facilities, support genuineness where explanations remain undisplaced by contrary evidence. Related-party rent or incomplete supporting records do not alone prove a sham arrangement, private benefit, or diversion of funds. Section 80G(5) approval cannot be refused solely because section 12AB registration was denied where no independent breach of section 80G(5) conditions or rule 11AA is identified.
Partner Capital Contributions Cannot Become Unexplained Firm Credits When Partners Admit Contributions and Their Sources Remain Individually Assessable
Partners' admitted capital contributions, where the contributors are identified, explain the nature and source of credits in a partnership firm's books for Section 68 purposes. Questions concerning a partner's creditworthiness or the source of contributed funds must be examined in that partner's individual assessment, rather than through an unexplained-cash-credit addition to the firm. Accordingly, an addition based solely on doubts about partners' sources is not sustainable against the firm, while assessment of those sources remains open in the partners' individual cases. A short delay attributable to serious illness may be condoned where sufficient cause exists and substantial justice favours merits adjudication.
Search-seized material assessments require year-specific satisfaction; regular assessment without prescribed procedure lacks jurisdiction and fails validity.
Assessment of an other person on search-seized material must follow the prescribed procedure under section 153C, with satisfaction recorded separately for each relevant assessment year. The relevant assessment period is reckoned from the date the jurisdictional Assessing Officer receives the seized material. A consolidated satisfaction note covering multiple years does not satisfy that requirement, rendering the assessments for 2014-15 to 2017-18 invalid. Where additions for 2018-19 relied on seized material, assessment under section 143(3) without initiating section 153C proceedings and issuing the prescribed notice lacked jurisdiction. The relevant assessments were consequently unsustainable.
Curable charitable-registration defects require confined reconsideration, fair evidence review, and fresh tax-exemption approval assessment under independent conditions.
Charitable-registration applications rejected for absent or pending State public-trust registration, insufficient evidence of genuine activities, or curable filing defects require category-specific reconsideration. A subsequently obtained State-registration certificate must be verified for authenticity, validity and applicability, while a pending application should permit later production of the certificate. Genuineness requires examination of accounts, actual activities, supporting material and their nexus with stated objects, with disclosure of adverse material and a fair opportunity to respond. Curable defects in Form 10AB should be rectified where legally permissible. Consequential tax-exemption approval refusals require fresh consideration while retaining independent statutory conditions.
Rectification of duplicate cash deposit assessments permits correction where the successor proprietorship has already been assessed.
Rectification under Section 154 addresses apparent duplication where cash deposits are assessed both in a dissolved firm's assessment and in the successor proprietorship's assessment. Separate books showing that the deposits belonged to the successor proprietorship, together with disclosure and assessment of those deposits as undisclosed income in its scrutiny assessment, support treating the duplication as an error apparent from the record. The issue concerns correction of an existing factual error rather than fresh adjudication or reopening; the original assessment mode and absence of an appeal do not prevent rectification.
E-verification timing protects timely filed returns from delayed-filing interest despite later verification during the COVID-19 compliance extension.
E-verification of an income-tax return relates back to its original filing date and does not make the return filed on the later verification date. Where the original filing occurred within the COVID-19 extension for statutory compliances, interest for delayed filing under section 234A is not leviable. A rectification under section 154 based on treating verification as the filing date is therefore illegal and unsustainable.
Unexplained expenditure requires adverse evidence, not merely vendor non-response, where books and banking records support documented business payments.
Unexplained-expenditure additions require evidence that the expenditure's source is unexplained, not merely vendor non-response to verification notices or later return-filing deficiencies. Expenditure recorded in unrejected books, paid through banking channels, and supported by invoices, vendor particulars, agreements, GST records and transaction data was treated as sufficiently evidenced unless the Revenue produced positive material discrediting it; the addition was therefore deleted. Rules on additional evidence do not require a remand report where no new document is admitted and the material comprises evidence already filed or explanations based on the assessment record.
Share-sale capital gains failed where abnormal scrip trading and weak fundamentals indicated non-genuine transactions for tax purposes.
Claimed exempt long-term capital gain on equity-share sales was not established as genuine merely through records of merger-based allotment, dematerialisation, and sale through a recognised intermediary. Investigation findings concerning the scrip, abnormal price movements, trading patterns, and absence of supporting financial fundamentals indicated conduct inconsistent with ordinary market behaviour. Failure to produce evidence of the company's intrinsic financial strength or rebut adverse findings, together with no new material against appellate findings, resulted in sustenance of the Section 68 addition.
Agricultural land classification must use municipal boundaries prevailing on the transfer date, while reassessment remains sustainable.
Agricultural land's capital-asset status must be determined by measuring its distance from municipal boundaries in force on the transfer date; a certificate based on superseded boundaries is insufficient. The land's taxability consequently requires fresh determination on admissible evidence. Reassessment may proceed where property-sale information, non-filing of a return and an unsubstantiated exemption claim create a prima facie basis that income escaped assessment; prior approval is valid where recorded reasons receive due consideration. Indexed acquisition cost for inherited land and residential-investment exemption require evidence and verification of statutory conditions, with the taxpayer bearing the burden of proof.
Year-end foreign-exchange gains on ECB liabilities funding Indian assets are taxable under section 43AA, not capital-cost adjustment.
Unrealised foreign-exchange gains arising on year-end reinstatement of foreign-currency ECB liabilities used to acquire capital assets in India must be recognised in taxable income under section 43AA. Section 43A's actual-cost adjustment mechanism applies only when its conditions, including acquisition of an asset from outside India, are met. Foreign-currency denomination or an overseas ECB source does not make assets acquired in India imported assets. Failure to satisfy section 43A does not remove the transaction from section 43AA.
Condonation of delay requires a complete credible explanation; ignorance and parallel consequential proceedings cannot cure an untimely challenge.
Condonation of delay requires cogent material explaining the entire period of default. Ignorance of tax law, electronic communications, or the availability of an appellate remedy does not constitute sufficient cause without a satisfactory explanation for failing to challenge the revisionary order. Active participation with legal assistance in consequential proceedings also did not justify the delayed challenge to the foundational order. As the connected proceedings had already been restored for fresh adjudication, entertaining the belated challenge would unsettle operative directions. The delay was not condoned and the challenge was barred by limitation.
Eligible assessee status for non-residents determined reassessment limitation, making the final order time-barred and invalid.
For assessment year 2016-17, the Finance Act 2020 amendment expanding "eligible assessee" to include non-residents did not apply. The non-resident assessee was therefore not subject to the extended assessment framework and the reassessment had to satisfy the ordinary limitation period. No reference to the Transfer Pricing Officer had been made, so the extended limitation available for transfer-pricing proceedings was also unavailable. The final reassessment order, issued after the applicable limitation period, was time-barred and quashed.
Pecuniary jurisdiction in reassessment depends on statutory allocation and valid transfer, requiring verification before the challenge is resolved.
Pecuniary allocation under administrative instructions does not independently create or extinguish an Assessing Officer's statutory jurisdiction to issue a reassessment notice. Section 120 permits jurisdiction to be exercised under directions of competent authorities, including concurrent jurisdiction by more than one Assessing Officer. Section 127 permits transfer of a case without monetary-threshold restrictions, and a valid transfer order confers complete jurisdiction on the transferee officer. Where the assessment record does not establish whether a transfer order exists, the jurisdictional objection requires verification of that order and fresh determination.
Concessional tax election requires statutory compliance; filing an election form alone cannot support depreciation disallowance through prima facie adjustment.
Concessional taxation under section 115BAA requires cumulative satisfaction of prescribed conditions; filing Form 10-IC alone does not validate the option. A return claiming additional depreciation without reversal or adjustment, while computing tax under the normal regime, indicates non-compliance because that depreciation is barred under the concessional regime. An intimation under section 143(1) cannot disallow the depreciation by resolving the disputed legal and factual validity of the purported option, as such adjustments are confined to prima facie matters.
Independent quasi-judicial assessment requires Assessing Officer judgment, making approval-led scrutiny assessments void from inception.
Independent exercise of quasi-judicial power by the Assessing Officer is essential to a regular scrutiny assessment under section 143(3). The statutory scheme does not authorise the Additional Commissioner's prior approval or consultation in making that assessment. Recorded consultation throughout the proceedings and approval before the order demonstrate absence of the Assessing Officer's independent application of mind and discretion, rendering the assessment void from inception and liable to be quashed.
Statutory exclusions from tax penalties protect bona fide disclosed income and audit-report delays caused by reasonable cause.
Section 270A(6)(a) excludes income from under-reporting where a bona fide explanation is supported by full disclosure of material facts. Uploaded audited accounts and tax audit report, pre-notice tax payments, and acceptance of returned income supported cancellation of the penalty under Section 270A(3). Section 273B also protects a taxpayer from penalty for delayed furnishing of a tax audit report where reasonable cause is established. Pandemic-related disruption and director disputes delaying finalisation of accounts, followed by report upload and no prejudice to assessment, treated the delay as a technical breach and precluded penalty under Section 271B.