Article 12(4) of the India-USA DTAA confines fees for included services to technical or consultancy services that make technical knowledge, experience, skill, know-how, or a process available for the recipient's independent use. Identified offshore goods supplies, without separate service, software, or know-how charges, are distinguished from technical or included services. Routine visa, relocation, sales, finance, accounting, payroll, and HR support similarly do not meet the make-available requirement. Appellate jurisdiction may entertain additional claims and evidence needed for substantial justice despite no revised return, while income reversals based on settlements and credit notes remain subject to factual verification under the real income doctrine.

Rectification under Section 154 may address an omission to levy mandatory Section 234B interest where the statutory conditions are satisfied and the omission is an apparent mistake rather than a debatable issue. A lower-deduction certificate under Section 197 authorises deduction at a reduced rate only for the projected income it covers; it does not change the recipient's obligation to revise current-income estimates and pay advance tax on income exceeding that estimate or subsequently recharacterised. Where legally deductible tax was not deducted from such excess income, the recipient bears the resulting advance-tax shortfall and Section 234B interest. The interest amount requires lawful verification, computation, and an adequate hearing.

Recorded futures and options profit included in the profit and loss account and offered as business income cannot be assessed again as an unexplained cash credit under Section 68, because that would create a duplicate addition. If such profit were characterised under Section 68, its prior inclusion as regular business income would require a corresponding exclusion. The restriction in Section 115BBE(2) on deductions, allowances and loss set-off applied prospectively from 1 April 2017 and did not govern Assessment Year 2015-16. The Section 68 addition was therefore unsustainable and liable to deletion.

Setting aside an assessment in revision and directing a fresh assessment renders the original assessment non-operative. An appeal founded solely on that superseded assessment becomes infructuous because it lacks a surviving basis, and parallel consideration could create conflicting findings or overlapping consequences. The fresh assessment is separately appealable and creates an independent cause of action. The assessee may therefore raise factual and legal challenges to additions, including the alleged cash-receipts addition, only in appellate proceedings concerning the operative fresh assessment, where the merits must be determined independently.

Approved resolution plans bind all stakeholders, including government authorities, and extinguish statutory dues for pre-cut-off periods where not provided for in the plan. Tax liabilities for assessment year 2014-15 fell within the plan's extinguished period. Reassessment under the Income-tax Act cannot revive such pre-resolution claims, because later quantification through an assessment order does not create a new enforceable liability. The reassessment order was therefore annulled and the consequential tax demand quashed.

Mark-to-market depreciation on a bank's available-for-sale securities, valued at lower of cost or market value under prudential guidelines, is deductible where the bank-specific securities accounting framework applies; a general mark-to-market clarification does not displace that framework. Eligible banks may deduct provisions for bad and doubtful debts within statutory limits without restricting eligibility to advances already classified as bad or doubtful. Provisions on standard assets representing anticipated credit-risk losses may therefore qualify. Minor filing delay may be condoned where sufficient cause is shown, applying a liberal approach that advances substantial justice.

Equity-oriented mutual-fund units are legally distinct from shares; their redemption therefore falls outside gains from alienation of shares under Article 13(3A) and may receive residual treatment under Article 13(4), subject to treaty entitlement. A Tax Residence Certificate satisfies an eligibility condition but does not conclusively establish entitlement where statutory anti-abuse rules apply. Revenue must identify and establish treaty abuse before invoking substance over form. Treaty relief and Article 27A require factual scrutiny of control, decision-making, regulatory compliance and commercial substance, with an effective opportunity to respond to adverse material.

India-Ireland DTAA provisions on software receipts and capital gains prevent Indian taxation where standard software and related support do not constitute royalty or fees for technical services. Article 13(5) covers only shares of a company resident in a contracting State; transfer of shares in a US company holding an Indian subsidiary instead falls within Article 13(6), allocating taxation to Ireland. Domestic definitions of transfer and the indirect-transfer deeming rule cannot enlarge treaty taxing rights absent genuine ambiguity or express incorporation. Domestic law may be consulted only to resolve treaty ambiguity; no treaty abuse or Multilateral Instrument application arises.

Revisionary jurisdiction requires an assessment order to be both erroneous and prejudicial to Revenue interests. Exemption for charitable purposes may remain supportable where the required audit report is furnished before reassessment is completed and the Assessing Officer has undertaken enquiries through scrutiny notices and supporting records. A legally plausible view reached after enquiry cannot be displaced merely because the revisional authority prefers another view. Subsequent rejection of condonation for delayed filing does not retrospectively make the assessment unsustainable. Where no complete lack of enquiry or identified factual or legal error exists, revision is not justified.

Capital gains computation requires the taxpayer to substantiate the cost of acquisition for the specific shares sold. Ledger extracts and accounting reconciliations, without transfer forms, share certificates, acquisition records, sale agreements, valuation details, or a scrip-wise reconciliation, do not establish that cost. Where sale consideration is undisputed but acquisition cost is unproved, the consideration cannot be treated as mere recovery of cost and may be assessed as long-term capital gain. Purchasers' identity or creditworthiness is irrelevant where the addition rests on failure to prove acquisition cost rather than unexplained credits.

Consideration received for an absolute and perpetual assignment of Indian trademark rights is treated as consideration for alienation of intellectual property, rather than royalty for use or the right to use the marks. Transfer of all rights, title, goodwill, registration, use and enforcement rights, coupled with extinction of the transferor's Indian rights, establishes ownership transfer despite territorial or product-related covenants. Fixed consideration not linked to future profits, productivity or use does not fall within the Protocol exception. Under the India-Switzerland DTAA, resulting gains fall within Article 13(6) and are taxable only in the transferor's State of residence, Switzerland.

Section 69B permits a deeming fiction for unexplained investment only when evidence establishes that actual investment exceeded the amount recorded in the books. A higher fair market value determined by a valuation report, without proof of payment beyond the contracted and recorded price, does not meet that burden. Valuation based on treating franchise fees as capital assets is defective where they are revenue expenditure, and the royalty-relief method is unsuitable where the brand cannot be sublicensed. Section 56(2)(viia) operates prospectively from 1 June 2010 and is inapplicable to an earlier assessment year. These principles supported deletion of the Section 69B addition.

Unexplained-money assessment under section 69A requires attribution to the person who owns and accounts for the deposits; section 115BBE then governs tax treatment. Where a partnership has been dissolved and its assets, liabilities, business and bank transactions have passed to a former partner's proprietorship, continuation of a bank account previously used by the firm alone does not attribute post-dissolution credits to the firm. Evidence such as the dissolution deed, PAN-linked bank records, return disclosures and balance-sheet entries establishes the proper assessee. A dissolved firm with no assessable income for the relevant year is not liable to penalty under section 271F for failure to furnish a return.

Receipts for structured online executive and professional courses provided by an educational institution to Indian students and corporate employees fall within the educational exclusion in Article 12(5)(c). That exclusion applies notwithstanding the definition of Fees for Included Services and is not confined to degree-granting, credit-bearing, campus-based or long-duration programmes. Technical or professional education, including customised and cohort-based programmes for commercial employees, remains teaching even when delivered off campus. Course customisation, non-credit status, and description as training do not convert educational instruction into technical consultancy services. Equalisation Levy treatment does not determine treaty characterisation. The make available test is therefore not determinative, and the receipts are not taxable in India as Fees for Included Services.

Sections 13(1)(c), 13(2)(c) and 13(3) require separate assessment of whether a founder or trustee is a specified person, whether remuneration was actually paid or credited, and whether it exceeded reasonable payment for services rendered. Founder or trustee status alone does not establish a violation, and section 13(3) imposes no general salary ceiling. An original Form No. 10B and a revised report must be tested against ledgers, financial statements, bank records, vouchers, payroll and TDS records, and the auditor's explanation. Any effect on exemption under sections 11 and 12 requires verification of payment, its nature, services and reasonableness.

Separate cash capital contributions from the same partner cannot be aggregated under Section 269ST merely because they are credited to the partner's capital account. Aggregation requires cash receipts of at least Rs. 2 lakh in a single day, for a single transaction, or for transactions relating to one event or occasion. Contributions received on different dates, each below the threshold, do not satisfy these conditions where no evidence establishes a common transaction or event. Consequently, penalty under Section 271DA is not sustainable.

Cash-credit additions require the assessee to establish both creditor creditworthiness and transaction genuineness; banking transfers, confirmations, tax returns and repayment records may establish only a paper trail. Where creditors ignore summons, their directors identify the entities as accommodation-entry providers, and the assessee cannot produce them, the burden of proof and human-probabilities test support treating unsecured loans as unexplained credits. Separately, after rejection of books, income for the relevant assessment years is computed at 2% of sales to maintain consistency with the prior assessment approach and substantially similar preceding-year facts. Related interest disallowance remains unaffected.

Reassessment under the Income-tax Act requires the Assessing Officer to form a legally sustainable reason to believe that income has escaped assessment. Third-party information from a departmental authority may be relevant material, but cannot alone establish that belief without independent inquiry, verification, and application of mind linking it to the assessee's alleged income escapement. Recorded reasons reflecting only unverified third-party information amount to a reason to suspect, not a reason to believe. Reassessment initiated on that basis is unsustainable, and consequential additions cannot survive.

Unexplained investment in intangible assets under section 69, and consequential depreciation disallowance, require verification of books, invoices, agreements, ledgers, payment records, salary records, and evidence of software customisation and development to establish asset cost and source. Section 115BBE governs taxation where an investment's nature and source remain unexplained. Assessed-income computations based on return-processing adjustments also require comparison of original and revised returns, the intimation, tax audit report, income computation, and assessment order to identify duplicate expense disallowances. Fresh adjudication must follow after a reasonable opportunity to provide supporting evidence and explanations.

Section 69A applies only where money is established to be unexplained. Cash receipts recorded in regular books as collections from identified business debtors are supported where party-wise ledgers, debtor details, audited accounts, sales and purchase registers, stock records and VAT returns substantiate them. Absence of debtor confirmations alone does not displace such documentary evidence, particularly where books are not rejected, no defects are identified and no independent party verification is undertaken. Acceptance of Specified Bank Notes during demonetisation does not establish an undisclosed source without contrary material. Suspicion cannot substitute proof.