COURT: | ITAT Raipur |
CORAM: | C. M. Garg (JM), Pramod Kumar (AM) |
SECTION(S): | 37(1) |
GENRE: | Domestic Tax |
CATCH WORDS: | business expenditure, Corporate Social Responsibility, CSR, Retrospective amendment |
COUNSEL: | Ramesh K. Singhania |
DATE: | June 23, 2016 (Date of pronouncement) |
DATE: | July 4, 2016 (Date of publication) |
AY: | 2008-09 |
FILE: | Click here to view full post with file download link |
CITATION: | |
S. 37(1): Expenditure on Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), though voluntary, is allowable as business expenditure. Explanation 2 to s. 37(1) inserted w.e.f. 01.04.2015 is not retrospective. It applies only to CSR expenditure referred to in s. 135 of the Companies Act and not to voluntary CSR expenditure |
The amendment in the scheme of Section 37(1), which has been introduced with effect from 1st April 2015, cannot be construed as to disadvantage to the assessee in the period prior to this amendment. This disabling provision, as set out in Explanation 2 to Section 37(1), refers only to such corporate social responsibility expenses as under Section 135 of the Companies Act, 2013, and, as such, it cannot have any application for the period not covered by this statutory provision which itself came into existence in 2013. Explanation 2 to Section 37(1) is, therefore, inherently incapable of retrospective application any further. In any event, as held by Hon’ble Supreme Court’s five judge constitutional bench’s landmark judgment, in the case of CIT Vs Vatika Townships Pvt Ltd [(2014) 367 ITR 466 (SC)], the legal position in this regard has been very succinctly summed up by observing that “Of the various rules guiding how legislation has to be interpreted, one established rule is that unless a contrary intention appears, legislation is presumed not to be intended to have a retrospective operation
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