Services by courts and tribunals exempt from GST, and compensatory damages are not treated as consideration for supply.
Schedule III excludes specific transactions from being treated as supplies under the CGST Act, notably services by any court or tribunal. Payments characterised as damages, mesne profits or compensatory awards for wrongful occupation are not consideration for a supply and thus fall outside GST, whereas contractual rent or sales by a liquidator constitute taxable supplies and may trigger registration and collection obligations under the Act, including representative assessee provisions for Court Receivers or authorised liquidators. (AI Summary)

Employee services exempt from GST when rendered in course of employment; non-contractual employer benefits may attract tax.
Services supplied by an employee to the employer in the course of or in relation to employment are excluded from GST under Schedule III when an employer-employee relationship exists and services are rendered in the course of employment. Perquisites and facilities provided under the employment contract (including transport, canteen, training, uniforms and memberships) are not taxable, whereas benefits outside contractual terms, transfers of business assets, concessional food recovered via salary, notice pay recoveries and personal use or retention of company assets may attract GST. (AI Summary)

Taxation of provident fund interest: excess contributions and employer accretions treated as taxable perquisites for employees.
Contributions and accumulated balances in a Recognized Provident Fund and provident funds under the Provident Funds Act are generally exempt when paid to the employee, but interest on a Taxable Contribution account and employer contributions or accretions attributable to excess employer contribution are taxable in the hands of the employee as salary or perquisite. Payments from approved superannuation and gratuity funds qualify for specific exemptions on death, retirement, commutation or refund of contributions, while trusts holding such funds are exempt from tax on income received by trustees and ordinarily need not file returns or attract TDS on that exempt income. (AI Summary)

Recognised provident fund rules govern tax treatment and employer contribution limits for employee benefit trusts and approvals.
Describes statutory nature, eligibility and approval mechanics for Recognised Provident Funds, Approved Superannuation Funds and Approved Gratuity Funds: each must be an irrevocable trust connected with an Indian trade, maintain prescribed documentation, meet employee residency thresholds, limit purposes to retirement, annuity or gratuity provision and pay benefits in India; trustees apply for approval and must report alterations, while employer contributions are deductible subject to tax treatment of excess contributions, interest credits and repayments. (AI Summary)

Non-resident taxability: residency, source, and deemed receipt/accrual rules determine Indian tax scope, including PE and business connection.
Taxability of a non-resident is determined by residency status and the source or character of income; total income includes income accruing or arising in India and income deemed to be received in India, with safeguards against double inclusion. Key categories for non-residents are business connection/significant economic presence, property or capital assets in India, salary in India, interest, dividends, royalties, fees for technical services, and gratuitous receipts from residents above specified thresholds. (AI Summary)

Income deemed to accrue in India: nexus tests, business connection and significant economic presence determine non-resident taxability.
Income of a non-resident is deemed to accrue or arise in India where it has a nexus with India: specified receipts (interest, royalty, fees for technical services) are taxable irrespective of residence; a business connection arises from authority to conclude contracts, habitual stock maintenance or order-taking, with exclusions for independent agents; significant economic presence (monetary transactions threshold or user interaction threshold) also creates a business connection and only income attributable to those transactions is taxable. Shares of offshore entities may be deemed situated in India if Indian assets exceed the monetary and percentage thresholds. (AI Summary)

Charitable exemption compliance requires timely ITR filing and proper application of income to preserve tax benefits.
Registered trusts and institutions must file the prescribed income tax return; failure to file within statutory time limits results in denial of exemption even if an updated return is later filed. Exempt entities must apply the predominant part of their income to qualifying objects and may accumulate amounts only by filing a notice specifying purpose and period, investing accumulated sums in prescribed modes, and complying with filing deadlines. Voluntary corpus contributions are excluded from income but do not count as application by the donor. Specified violations, including diversion of income or non genuine activity, may lead to cancellation of registration. (AI Summary)

Accumulation rules for tax-exempt institutions require filing of prescribed form or accumulated income may be treated as taxable.
Amendment requires entities covered by Section 10(23C) that do not apply the prescribed proportion of income to their objects to file Form No. 10 stating purpose and period of accumulation, invest accumulated amounts in permitted modes, and file by the ITR due date; the accumulation period is capped and excludes periods prevented by court order. Failure to comply - including diversion of funds, cessation of required investments, non utilisation within the accumulation period, or crediting/transferring to certain institutions - results in the accumulated amount being treated as the recipient's income in the relevant year. (AI Summary)

Charitable trusts and institutions face new compliance rules on exemptions, corpus use and exit tax.
Finance Act, 2023 creates two regimes for exemption claims and changes corpus treatment by disallowing retroactive application benefits, permitting treatment as application only if redeposited or repaid within five years, and imposing conditions (no disguised corpus transfers, TDS, cash limits, no benefit to prohibited persons, India only applications except Board approval). It caps qualifying inter trust donations at 85% for donor trusts, revises registration and audit filing timelines, authorizes cancellation of provisional registrations for specified violations, and extends exit tax triggers and liability for accreted income. (AI Summary)

Tax amendments: Agniveer Corpus deduction introduced and key TDS and start up reliefs realigned under finance changes.
Agniveer Corpus contributions are deductible for enrolled individuals, including government matching contributions treated as salary, with Corpus Fund receipts exempted. TDS rules adjust thresholds for co-operative societies and raise cash transaction limits for rural cooperative lenders, altering penalty triggers. Start-up loss carryforward and tax-holiday eligibility periods are extended and aligned; IFSC relocation deadlines and fund definitions are prolonged to include recent fund management regulations. The lower-deduction certificate regime is extended to business trust distributions, and a prior exemption for TDS on interest for listed dematerialized debentures has been removed. (AI Summary)

Non-resident taxation: Finance Act 2023 expands withholding, deeming, presumptive limits, treaty TDS relief, and ODI exemptions.
Finance Act, 2023 extends section 197 certificates to income under section 194LBA for business trust distributions; treats sums over Rs.50,000 received without consideration by not ordinarily residents from residents as deemed income under section 9; disallows set off of brought forward losses and unabsorbed depreciation where presumptive taxation under sections 44BB/44BBA is followed; permits TDS under section 196A at the lower of 20% or treaty rate with a valid tax residency certificate; excludes certain non residents from higher TDS/TCS under sections 206AB/206CCA; expands section 56(2)(viib) to apply irrespective of payer residency; and extends section 10(4E) exemption to distributions on ODIs taxed in the IFSC Banking Unit. (AI Summary)