AI Drafter 
TaxTMI 
TaxTMI 
2015 (8) TMI 920
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.... received certain voluntary contributions in the period relevant to Assessment Years 2005- 06 to 2009-10 for the purpose of construction of a 'Kalyana Mantapa'; which were credited to the Building Fund in the Balance Sheet, treating these amounts as capital receipts and not as income by crediting the profit and loss account. The Assessing Officer observed that as per the returns of income for Assessment Years 2005-06 to 2009-10, the income from voluntary donations were claimed to be exempt from taxation by claiming application towards charitable purposes, even though the income of the assessee was not eligible for exemption as it did not have the benefit of registration under Section 12A of the Act for these assessment years. In that view of the matter, the Assessing Officer initiated proceedings under Section 147 of the Act to bring to tax income of the assessee that had escaped assessment for Assessment Years 2005-06 to 2009-10 and issued notices under Section 148 of the Act. Subsequently, the Assessing Officer completed the assessments for Assessment Years 2005-06 to 2009-10 under Section 143(3) rws 147 of the Act by separate orders dt.28.9.2012, wherein the Assessing Officer re....
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....tal Representative submitted that the assessee society has secured registration only w. E. F. Assessment Year 2012-13 and therefore the voluntary contributions received by the assessee in the period relevant to Assessment Years 2005-06 to 2009-10 are liable to be considered as income under Section 2(24)(iia) of the Act. The learned Departmental Representative contended that the learned CIT (Appeals) was not justified in deleting the addition made towards voluntary donations by relying on the pamphlet dt.16.8.2003 soliciting donations. The learned Departmental Representative contends that there is no difference between voluntary donations received for specific purpose and voluntary donations that are general in nature and that since section 2(24)(iia) of the Act speaks only of voluntary contributions therefore all voluntary contributions are includable as income irrespective of whether they are for a specific purpose or otherwise. 5.2 The learned Authorised Representative for the assessee filed a paper book containing, inter alia, details of donations, copy of pamphlet dt.16.8.2003 and a copy of sample receipt in support of the collection of donations. Copies of certain judicial ....
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....one the long delay caused by the assessee in applying for the registration. Therefore, the Assessing Officer had no other option but to complete the assessments in the status of AOP also closing his eyes towards Section 11 and Section 13. To that extent, the Assessing Officer was right as he had acted only according to will of law. But as far as the contents of the assessments were concerned, even when the assessee had been assessed as AOP and deprived of Section 11 benefits, the Assessing Officer could assess only net income of the assessee and not gross receipts. As far as the assessee was concerned, construction of houses, reclamation of land, etc., were part of its regular activities. Houses were built on the land of poor agriculturists. The assessee-society had no legal title or right over the land or houses of those villagers/ agriculturists who were the beneficiaries. The purpose and activity of the assessee-society was to engage in such charitable activities. Whatever amount had been spent on those programmes/projects, it was spent in the usual course of carrying on its acclaimed objects. Therefore, there was no basis whatsoever, factual or legal, to hold that the amo....
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....e income-side. (2) All the money spent under the tied-up programmes directed by the donor also will be taken out of the computation of income from the expenses-side. (3) Any non-refundable credit balance in the personal account of Bread for the World will be treated as income in the year in which such non- refundable balance was ascertained. (4) The expenses incurred by the assessee for house construction, reclamation of land, non-formal education programme (other than covered by the tied-up grants) will be deducted as revenue expenses." 25. Honourable Rajasthan High Court in the case of Sukhdeo Charity Estate (supra) held as follows (as per head note):- "It was for the specific purpose of implementation of the water supply scheme that the request for contribution had been made by the assessee-trust and it was in response to that request that the amount had been given by the Calcutta trust. It was clear that the intention of the donor and the donee was to treat the money as capital to be spent for the water supply scheme. The fact that the amount had not been paid over to the State Government and was kept unutilised in the account of the assessee-trust was not releva....
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....ct the character of the contributions, as voluntary contributions. (iii) That the finding of the Tribunal, that the assessee was not entitled to exemption as a trust under Section 12 because some of the funds were being utilised for purposes other than charitable and religious was a finding of fact and no question of law arose for reference." This judgment was relied upon by the Reference. A careful reading of this judgment does not indicate that the question raised by the assessee before us was posed to the court. We do not feel that this is a precedent for laying down a proposition of allowability of expenditure for computation of income of a charitable institution which is denied benefit Under Section 11. Honourable Supreme Court in the case of Goodyear India Ltd. v. State of Haryana (1991) 188 ITR 402 (SC), as per head note, held as follows: "Precedent -- Authority only for what it decides - Not for what may remotely or even logically follows - Decision on question not argued cannot be treated as precedent." Thus, the judgment of Honourable Andhra Pradesh High Court (supra) does not help the case of the Revenue. 27. On other hand, learned authors Chaturvedi and P....
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....that they shall form part of the corpus of the trust are capital receipts in the hands of the trust. They are not income either under the general law or under Section 2(24)(ii-a) rightly construed. (See under Section 2(24)(ii-a), "Voluntary contributions received by charity".) (b) Section 2(24)(ii-a) deems revenue contributions to be income of the trust. It thereby prevents the trust from claiming exemption under general law on the ground that such contributions stand on the same footing as gifts and are therefore not taxable. (See under Section 10(3), "Voluntarypayments ..."p.320.) (c) Section 12 goes one step further and deems such revenue contributions to be income derived from property held under trust. It thereby makes applicable to such contributions all the conditions and restrictions under Sections 11 and 13 for claiming exemptions. (See also Expln. (1) to Section 11(1).] (d) Section 11(1)(d) specifically grants exemption to capital contributions to make the fact of non-taxability clear beyond doubt. But it proceeds on the erroneous assumptions that such contributions are of income nature - "income in the form of voluntary contributions". This assumption should be ....
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....red as tied up fund and it is capital receipt. If the donations are made voluntarily for specific purpose, the same cannot be held as income of the assessee, since the donations were, in our opinion, given for specific purpose as tied up grant and it cannot be taxed as income. 60. In the present case, the resolution passed by the assessee shows that it has been received from members of the trust and their associated companies/persons towards "building construction" and the same were expended for that purpose. So far as section 2(24)(iia) is concerned, this section has to be read in the context of introduction of section 12. It is significant that section 2(24)(iia) was inserted with effect from 1.4.1973 simultaneously with the present section 12, both of which were introduced from the said date by Finance Act, 1972. Section 12 makes it clear by the words appearing in parenthesis that contributions made with a specific direction that they shall form part of the corpus of the trust or institution shall not be considered as income of the trust. The Board circular No. 108 dated 20.3.1973 is extracted at page 1754 of Volume I of Sampath Iyengar Law of Income-tax (10th Edition), in wh....
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....sual course of carrying on its acclaimed objects. Therefore, there is no basis whatsoever, factual or legal, to hold that the amounts spent by the assessee in constructing houses or reclaiming land are capital expenditure. As far as the assessee is concerned, those expenses are revenue expenses. The assessee has no rig ht or title over those properties. Those expenses were incurred as part of its normal activities for which the society was formed. Therefore, the money spent by the assessee-society in constructing houses, reclaiming the land, for non-formal education, etc., has to be allowed as deduction in the computation of income. 10. The grants received from Bread for the World were for specific purposes. The grants which are for specific purposes do not belong to the assessee- society. Such grants do not form corpus of the assessee or its income. Those grants are not donations to the assessee so as to bring them under the purview of s. 12 of the Act. Voluntary contributions covered by s. 12 are those contributions freely available to the assessee without any stipulation which the assessee could utilise towards its objectives according to its own discretion and judgment. Tied....
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....amount received from the assessee's trustees/members just as some trustee can act as a trust for more than one trust. Tied up or specific grant need not, therefore, be treated as amounts which are required to be considered for assessment. In other words, tied up grant received from donors for a specific purpose cannot form part of assessee's income. 64. In view of the above discussion, we are of the opinion that voluntary contributions in the nature of tied up grant received by the assessee cannot be brought to tax even the trust is not registered u/s. 12AA of the Act. The tied up donations received by the assessee should not be taxable as income of the assessee, if it is used for specific purpose for which it has been given and it cannot be considered as revenue receipts so as to tax the same......." 5.3.4 In coming to the aforesaid conclusion the Hyderabad Bench of the ITAT has also relied upon the decisions of the ITAT, Delhi Bench in the case of Smt. Basanthi Devi (supra) and Sri Chakhan Lal Garg Education Trust (supra) and in the case of Gaudiya Granth Anved Trust (supra) wherein similar issue raised has been considered by both the Delhi and Agra Benches of the I....