Taxpayer’s Choice for Valuation of Shares at Premium Upheld

The Income Tax Appellate Tribunal (ITAT) in the case of M/s. Rameshwaram Strong Glass (P) Ltd. v The Income Tax Officer[1] has upheld the right of the company issuing shares to choose the valuation methodology under the provisions of the Income Tax Act, 1961 (IT Act) read with the rules framed thereunder (Tax Law) for the purposes of determining the ‘fair market value’ (FMV) of such shares at premium.
Continue Reading Taxpayer’s Choice for Valuation of Shares at Premium Upheld

Recently, the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) rejected Ajanta Pharma Limited’s (Ajanta Pharma) scheme of amalgamation and arrangement (Scheme) between the company and its shareholder Gabs Investments Private Limited (Gabs Investments) on the grounds of General Anti Avoidance Rules (GAAR).
Continue Reading NCLT Smell Tests GAAR! Rejects Ajanta Pharma’s Scheme of Merger on Grounds of Tax Avoidance

The Telangana and Andhra Pradesh High Court (High Court) in the case of Leo Edibles and Fats Limited v. TRO, Writ Petition No 8560 of 2018, has allowed the liquidation of assets of a company under the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code, 2016 (IBC), despite the claim of the tax authorities that they have a charge over it, by virtue of having initiated attachment proceedings under the Income Tax Act, 1961 (IT Act). The High Court, while dealing with the interplay between the IT Act and the IBC, held that the income tax authorities are not at par with ‘secured creditors’ under the IBC.

The petitioner in the instant case had purchased certain property of a company undergoing liquidation under the IBC in an e-auction. The registrar refused to register the transfer in favour of the petitioner due to the attachment notice issued by the tax authorities. Accordingly, the petitioner filed a writ petition challenging the refusal of the registrar to register the sale deed – and sought issuance of direction to the income tax department to withdraw the said attachment.Continue Reading Decoded: The Interplay Between Tax Law and the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code

The Income Tax Appellate Tribunal, Delhi (ITAT) recently delivered a very significant decision in the case of Nokia Networks O.Y (Assessee)[1] on the issue of its permanent establishment (PE) in India and attribution of income to the PE. The majority of members of the ITAT ruled in favour of the Assessee holding that its Indian subsidiary would not constitute a PE in India, especially in absence of a Service PE clause in the erstwhile India-Finland Tax Treaty (Treaty).

Facts

The Assessee is a resident of Finland and sold GSM equipment manufactured by it to Indian telecom operators, on a principal-to-principal basis. It’s Indian subsidiary, Nokia India Private Limited (NIPL) was either assigned the installation contracts by the Assessee or entered into independent contracts with the customers for installation. NIPL also entered into technical support agreements with customers. NIPL’s income from these activities was taxed in India.

The Assessing Officer (AO) was of the view that NIPL constituted a PE of the Assessee and attributed an additional 30 percent of the profit from the equipment to NIPL. The AO also concluded that 30% of the equipment price pertained to supply of software and sought to tax it as royalty in the hands of the Assessee. On appeal, the ITAT held that NIPL being a virtual projection would form a PE, and attributed to NIPL 20 percent of the Assessee’s profits from the sale of equipment to Indian customers.Continue Reading Subsidiary is Not a Permanent Establishment but Beware the ‘Virtual Projection’ Risk

The Income Tax Act, 1961 (IT Act) contains several special beneficial provisions that allow for deductions in order to promote certain activities. One such provision is Section 10A of the IT Act, which seeks to promote and boost new business undertakings situated in free trade zones by providing suitable deductions. It provides for a 100 percent deduction of profits and gains derived by undertakings engaged in export of articles or computer software. The deduction is available for ten assessment years from the year in which the entity commences operations. These profits are to be determined based on the ratio of export turnover to the total turnover of the undertaking.

Over the years, there have been several disputes over the manner in which this ratio is to be determined. This is largely because while the term ‘export turnover’ has been defined under Section 10A of the IT Act, “total turnover” has not. In other words, there is no explicit provision that allows the taxpayer to exclude amounts from total turnover in case such amounts have already been excluded from export turnover.

In the recent case of CIT v HCL Technologies Limited[1], the Supreme Court of India dealt with this issue and provided much needed clarity on the subject.Continue Reading Expenses Excluded from Export Turnover, also to be Excluded from Total Turnover

Stock Appreciation Rights (SARs) are recognised globally as one of the most popular instruments of stock-based compensation. SARs are alternatives adopted for implementing equity-based compensation plans like an employee stock option or employee stock purchase. SARs can be structured as either ‘equity settled’ or ‘cash settled’. As a concept, SARs contemplate passing on of appreciation in the value of a certain number of equity shares to employees.

The Income Tax Act, 1961 (IT Act) did not have any specific provision to tax such income; specific provisions were introduced in 1999 to provide for taxation of benefits provided by an employer to its employees under share benefit rewards. From 1999 onwards, Section 17(2) of the IT Act specifies the payments that come within the ambit of ‘salary’ and ‘perquisites’, and covers benefits available to employees therefrom.

For the period prior to 1999, the issue of taxability of amounts received from various employee benefit programmes, including amounts received from the redemption of SARs, was always under dispute. The special bench of the Mumbai Income Tax Appellate Tribunal (ITAT) in the case of Sumit Bhattacharya[1] held that the amount received on redemption of SARs should be taxable as salary because it was an employment related benefit, in the nature of deferred wages, bonuses or incentives received as a fruit of employment. However, the issue remained inconclusive and litigious. The Supreme Court (SC) appears to have settled this issue in the case of Bharat V. Patel[2], wherein it has been held that the amount received on account of SARs redemption prior to amendment to section 17(2) would not be taxed as salaries.Continue Reading SC Holds that Income from SARs is Taxed as Capital Gains Only

Taxation of international digital transactions has been a perplexing issue. As per the international tax rules, where an enterprise is a resident in one state with income originating in another state (source country), international tax rules provide that the source country will have the taxing rights over such income only if it is established that the enterprise has a permanent establishment (PE) in the source country. Thus, for the source country to be able to tax profits arising from the digital economy, some physical presence of the non-resident enterprise is required in the source state.

However, today a non-resident can carry out a large amount of internet transactions in the source state without having any significant physical presence there. A website can be launched from anywhere and made available to users anywhere in the world. There is no central point, or physical location, for such a transaction and thus, it may not fall within any country’s jurisdiction for taxation purposes.

This opens up two possibilities: double taxation or non-taxation. The concerned people could be even further creative, and actually set up an online business at a place where none of the founders / promoters are present, thereby making it even more difficult to tax them.Continue Reading Taxing the Digital Economy: The Rule of ‘Significant Economic Presence’

Published here is Part II, the concluding section, of our blog piece on the key amendments proposed under Budget 2018 to the Income Tax Act. You can view Part I here. We hope you enjoy reading this as much as we have enjoyed putting this together.


  • Amendments in Relation to Income Computation Disclosure Standards (ICDS): Recently, the Delhi High Court had held that some provisions of the ICDS are unconstitutional for want of legislative backing and their variance from applicable judicial precedents. In order to provide a requisite legislative framework for ICDS, the Budget now proposes to make various amendments in the provisions of the IT Act, pertaining to the deduction of marked to market losses computed in accordance with ICDS, for treating the gains or losses, computed in accordance with ICDS, as income or loss and to provide for a method of valuations in cases of inventory, goods, services and securities, etc.
  • Facilitating Measures for Companies under Insolvency Proceedings:
    • Relief from MAT: The Budget proposes to provide MAT relief for companies whose application for a corporate insolvency resolution process under the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code, 2016 (IBC) has been admitted by the Adjudicating Authority. Accordingly, the aggregate amount of unabsorbed depreciation and loss brought forward shall be allowed to be reduced from the book profit to determine MAT.
    • Benefit of carry forward and set off of losses: The provisions of section 79 of the IT Act relating to carry forward and set off losses would not apply to companies whose resolution plan has been approved under the IBC.

Continue Reading First Impressions of the Budget 2018: Income Tax Act – Part II

This is the first post in the our new blog series on the Budget 2018. This is a two-part piece on the amendments proposed under this Budget to the Income Tax Act; published here is Part I. We hope you enjoy reading this as much as we have enjoyed putting this together.


On 1st February, 2018, the Finance Minister Mr. Arun Jaitley presented the last full-year Union Budget before the 2019 Lok Sabha elections. It was delivered against a backdrop of economic slowdown caused by demonetisation in November, 2016 and the implementation of Goods and Services Tax (GST) legislations. The Budget focuses on strengthening agriculture and the rural economy, providing social security benefits and infrastructure creation.

The Finance Minister stated that the Indian economy is reviving and predicted that its Gross Domestic Product will rise to 7-7.5% in 2018-19, and that India is expected to become one of the world’s fastest and largest economies.

In the paragraphs below, we present a snapshot of some of the proposed amendments to the Income Tax Act, 1961 (IT Act) presented in this Budget:Continue Reading First Impressions of the Budget 2018: Income Tax Act – Part I

Multinational enterprises often outsource back-office support operations to their captive subsidiaries in India. Additionally, foreign parent companies second their employees to provide guidance to the Indian subsidiary in the provision of back-office functions. A contentious question has for some time arisen, however. Should such arrangements constitute a fixed place Permanent Establishment (PE), a service PE or a Dependant Agent PE (DAPE) for the foreign company in India?

In the 2007 case of Morgan Stanley[i], the Supreme Court (SC), while dealing with the issue of PE, held that back office functions performed by the Indian subsidiary were preparatory and auxiliary in nature and, therefore, did not constitute a fixed place PE. The SC also held that if the foreign company had deputed its employees to the Indian company to render stewardship services, then no service PE would be constituted in India.

In contrast, however, in the case of Centrica Offshore[ii] in 2014, the Delhi High Court (Del HC), held that if the terms of employment of the employees seconded to India continued to be controlled by the foreign company, it would be regarded as having constituted a service PE in India.

In the ensuing paragraphs, we discuss the recent decision of the SC in the instant case of e-Funds Corporation and its implications for resolving this long-standing issue.Continue Reading Outsourcing of Back Office Support Functions Does Not Create a Permanent Establishment