GST rate and goods-classification clarifications recommended at the 55th GST Council meeting are applied under the Tamil Nadu Goods and Services Tax Act, 2017. Uniform implementation is secured by adopting, mutatis mutandis, clarificatory guidance issued by the Department of Revenue, Tax Research Unit, for Tamil Nadu GST administration.

Cheque-dishonour proceedings were stayed against a former director where the available material prima facie showed that the director resigned before the cheque was drawn. The resignation preceded the cheque by several years, making the complaint against that individual appear misconceived at the preliminary stage. Notice was issued, and proceedings against the former director remained stayed pending the next hearing.

PM Surya Ghar Muft Bijli Yojana provides central financial assistance for eligible grid-connected residential rooftop solar systems, capped at Rs. 78,000 for systems of three kilowatts or more. Applicants must be Indian citizens who own a suitable house, hold a valid electricity connection, and have not received an earlier solar-panel subsidy. Applications require portal registration, distribution-company feasibility approval, installation through a registered vendor, net metering, inspection, commissioning and submission of bank details. Assistance is transferred directly after verification. State-specific net-metering procedures, approvals and additional incentives may apply.

Cheque-dishonour proceedings against a former director may lack a prima facie basis where corporate filings record resignation before the cheques were drawn. The DIR-12 on record showed that the director resigned in 2014, whereas the disputed cheques were drawn in 2018. On that basis, notice was issued and proceedings against the former director were stayed pending the next hearing.

GST applicability clarifications concerning certain services apply mutatis mutandis for implementation under the Tamil Nadu Goods and Services Tax framework. The measure seeks uniform treatment of the identified service-related GST issues within the State. The clarifications are treated as clarificatory in nature and operate in connection with implementation of the Tamil Nadu Goods and Services Tax Act, 2017.

Provisional sanction of GST refund claims relating to zero-rated supplies is to be processed through system-based identification and evaluation of risk. CBIC instructions governing this risk-based approach are adopted, mutatis mutandis, for implementation under the TNGST Act, 2017. State tax officers are required to apply the endorsed approach uniformly while processing eligible provisional refund claims filed before the proper officer.

Chhattisgarh GST amendments define online gaming, online money gaming, specified actionable claims, and virtual digital assets. Platform owners, operators, and managers arranging supplies of specified actionable claims are deemed suppliers liable for tax. Online money gaming supplied from outside India to persons in India is brought within compulsory registration. The amendments also impose a three-year limit for filing outward-supply details, returns, annual returns, and operator statements, subject to conditional governmental relaxation; revise input tax credit restrictions; and restructure tribunal, electronic-commerce penalty, offence, and compounding provisions.

The Foreign Exchange Management (Current Account Transactions) (Amendment) Rules, 2000 substitute the Schedule II entry concerning advertisement abroad by a State Government or its public sector undertakings. The substituted entry identifies the Ministry of Finance, Department of Economic Affairs, in relation to that current account transaction. The amendment takes effect upon publication.

Empanelment of specified Chartered Accountants, Chartered Accountant firms, Cost Accountants and Cost Accountant firms enables their selection for conducting special audits of GST-registered persons. Inclusion in the panel does not create any right to receive allocation of taxpayers for special audit. An empanelled professional may be removed if application information or particulars are subsequently found false or misrepresented. The panel remains valid for three years from its notification.

Empanelment of chartered accountants, chartered accountant firms, cost accountants and cost accountant firms for GST special audit is amended to rectify clerical and typographical errors in the names of listed professionals and firms. The corrections align the empanelment entries with the names furnished in the respective applications and are confined to correction of the recorded names of already empanelled applicants.

Interest on borrowed funds is deductible only to the extent the funds are used for the assessee's business. Interest attributable to funds deployed for acquiring shares through an intermediary qualifies for deduction. Funds retained by a sister concern without any return, enforceable arrangement, or stipulated period for acquiring shares are not treated as used for the assessee's business. Accordingly, interest attributable to the unutilised amount retained by the sister concern is not deductible, while interest linked to the share-acquisition funds remains allowable.

JCR upgrades India's foreign-currency and local-currency long-term issuer ratings to A- with a stable outlook, citing sustained economic growth, productivity-oriented policies and improved financial-system soundness. Fiscal constraints include elevated deficits, intergovernmental fiscal transfers, electoral-cycle sensitivity, and high combined government debt and interest burdens. Greater emphasis on infrastructure capital expenditure has improved the quality of fiscal spending. External resilience is supported by a contained current account deficit, services surplus and foreign-exchange reserves exceeding short-term external debt.

Appeal limitation was satisfied because the appeal was filed within the prescribed period after receipt of the intimation. Section 205 protects a deductee from direct recovery of tax actually deducted by a tenant from rental income. Failure by the deductor to deposit deducted tax is actionable against the deductor, while non-reflection in the tax credit statement does not extinguish the deductee's entitlement to corresponding TDS credit. Tax demand cannot be sustained to the extent it results from denying credit for tax actually deducted.

Construction of a complex, building or part thereof intended for sale is brought within the amended service description where the amount charged includes the value of land or an undivided share of land. Transactions are excluded where the entire consideration is received after issuance of the required completion certificate or after first occupation, whichever is earlier. The amendment is deemed effective from 20 October 2023.

Rural-branch status for the provision for bad and doubtful debts depends on the population of the relevant place under the latest published preceding census, not merely on inclusion within a larger urban area. RBI census-based branch classification supports the claim. Net investment depreciation is allowable where securities are measured under RBI guidelines and ICDS VIII, with only category-wise net depreciation claimed. Unclaimed stale demand-draft balances remain liabilities to drawees and do not become income while claims remain payable and balances are transferable to the prescribed RBI fund. Ex-gratia employee payments qualify as business expenditure. Rural bad-debt recoveries require verification, while the non-rural bad-debt claim requires fresh merits adjudication.

Banking tax computation allows net depreciation on restructured equity and preference shares where valuation follows RBI guidelines. Appellate enhancement cannot disallow depreciation on security receipts that was not examined in assessment, as it would introduce a new source of income. Bad-debt and qualifying technical write-offs on non-rural advances need not be adjusted against the rural-advance provision. Section 14A and Rule 8D do not produce further expenditure disallowance for banks' stock-in-trade securities. Stale draft balances and advance receipts remain liabilities rather than taxable income. Rural-branch provision deduction uses month-end aggregate average advances, while business ex-gratia payments are deductible.

Statutory penalties imposed for contraventions of the Banking Regulation Act are not deductible as business expenditure where the taxpayer does not establish that the levy is compensatory; absence of prima facie money-laundering evidence does not alter the statutory character of the penalty. The payment is therefore barred by Explanation 1 to section 37(1). The book-profit computation mechanism under section 115JB does not apply to a nationalised bank, following the statutory framework and the Finance Act 2012 amendment. Accordingly, the penalty disallowance stands, while the bank remains outside the minimum alternate tax regime.

Final assessment orders issued after Dispute Resolution Panel directions must be passed within one month from the end of the month in which those directions are received under Section 144C(13). Where the directions were issued in January 2022, digital authentication of the final order and demand notice only in July 2022 did not meet that time limit. As Section 144B(6) requires digital authentication for an assessment order to take effect, the delayed authentication rendered the final assessment order time-barred and invalid.

Deposits assessed as unexplained money required fresh adjudication because the assessee had not responded to assessment notices or supplied relevant details to the Assessing Officer or appellate authority. Adequate opportunity to explain the nature and source of the deposits, and to present defences, was considered necessary in the interest of justice. All issues concerning the deposits were restored to the Assessing Officer for reconsideration after providing an adequate hearing.

Unexplained-investment addition for land acquired in another person's name requires material establishing that the assessee funded the purchase. Registered sale deeds identified the named purchaser and recorded receipt of consideration from him, while his statements attributed the funds to plot-sale proceeds and past savings without linking the assessee. As the investment was also assessed substantively in the purchaser's and connected company's hands, no basis remained to sustain the same addition against the assessee. The addition was therefore deleted.