AI Drafter 
TaxTMI 
TaxTMI 
1993 (12) TMI 102
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....order is Rs. 1,07,950 for asst. year 1979-80 which is reduced to Rs. 57,950 consequent to the order of the Commissioner (Appeals). It is Rs. 1,71,740 for assessment year 1980-81 and is reduced to Rs. 46,920. The orders which are under appeal before the Tribunal are the assessment orders wherein the income was determined at Rs. 1,07,950 and Rs. 1,71,740. The assessee's submission is that her income as modified consequent to the order of the Commissioner (Appeals) should be the determinative figure for the fee to be paid by the assessee. The contention of the revenue, on the other hand, is that it is the income as computed in the original assessment that must be the figure to determine the fee to be paid by the assessee. 4. Section 253(6) reads as under: "An appeal to the Appellate Tribunal shall be in the prescribed form and shall be verified in the prescribed manner and shall, in the case of an appeal made on or after the 1st day of June, 1992, irrespective of the date of initiation of the assessment proceedings relating thereto, be accompanied by a fee of,--- (a) where the total income of the assessee as computed by the Assessing Officer in the case to which the appeal re....
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....d results, has to be avoided. We, therefore, hold that the total income which was computed in the orders of the Assessing Officer which are subject-matter of appeal before the Tribunal is relevant and if in those orders the assessed income is more than Rs. 1 lakh, a fee of Rs. 1,500 has to be paid for filing the appeal before the Tribunal. Thus, in this case, the proper fee payable by the assessee would be Rs. 1,500. 5. The fee in the second category depends upon the meaning of the term "total income". It is defined under section 2(45) to mean total income referred to in section 5 computed in the manner laid down in the Act. Section 5 defines the scope of "total income" and provides that the total income of any person includes all income from whatever source derived which is received or is deemed to have been received, accrues or arises or is deemed to have accrued or arisen. Chapter III consisting of sections 10 to 13A provides for certain incomes not forming part of total income. One such exemption is agricultural income provided under section 10(1) of the Act. Chapter IV provides how the total income is to be computed and section 14 thereof provides that the computation of to....
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....-------------- I.T.A.No. Asst. Year Total income Losses of Total Fee before set earlier year income pay-  ....
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....------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 1363/Hyd/1992 1984-85 47,42,18,060 47,42,18,060 nil 250 1364/Hyd/1992 1979-80 5,40,90,804 5,40,90,804 nil 250 1096/Hyd/1993 1989-90 1,93,447 1,93,447 ni....
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....ject. The Board's Circular No. 636 dated 31-8-1992, relied upon by the counsels, nowhere states that if the loss is more than Rs. 1 lakh, the fee would in that case also be Rs. 250. In any case, the Board's interpretation does not bind the Tribunal in considering the provisions of the statute. We, therefore, hold that the fee payable in these two appeals would be Rs. 1,500. 7. The last situation is where the total income assessed is less than Rs. 1 lakh but if the agricultural income is considered, it becomes more than Rs. 1 lakh. This position obtains in the case of Shri N. V. Soma Raju [IT Appeal No. 961 (Hyd.) of 1993]. The total income before set off in this case is Rs. 58,011. After setting off the loss, it works out to 'nil'. Agricultural income as per the assessment order is Rs. 1,37,556. As discussed above, the total income is the aggregate amount of the incomes which are not excluded in computing the total income under Chapter III. Agricultural income is one income which is not to be included while computing the total income of an assessee and that is provided in sub-section (1) of section 10 of the IT Act. The inclusion of agricultural income for determining the tax pa....