COURT: | Calcutta High Court |
CORAM: | Asha Arora J, Girish Chandra Gupta J |
SECTION(S): | 263, 68 |
GENRE: | Domestic Tax |
CATCH WORDS: | bogus share capital, Revision |
COUNSEL: | N. K. Poddar |
DATE: | May 13, 2016 (Date of pronouncement) |
DATE: | May 26, 2016 (Date of publication) |
AY: | 2009-10 |
FILE: | Click here to view full post with file download link |
CITATION: | |
S. 263: Even if the AO has conducted an inquiry into the taxability of share capital receipts u/s 68, the CIT is entitled to revise u/s 263 if the AO has not applied his mind to important aspects. Law in Lovely Exports 299 ITR 268, Sophia Finance 205 ITR 98 etc does not apply as they are prior to the Money Laundering Act 2002. Qs whether receipt towards share capital is taxable pre s. 56(2)(viib) & whether proviso to s. 68 is retrospective are left open |
Whether receipt of share capital was a taxable event prior to 1st April, 2013 before introduction of Clause (VII b) to the Sub-section 2 of Section 56 of the Income Tax Act; whether the concept of arms length pricing in a domestic transaction before introduction of Section 92A and 92BA of the Income Tax Act was there at the relevant point of time are not questions which arise for determination in this case. The assessee with an authorised share capital of Rs.1.36 crores raised nearly a sum of Rs.32 crores on account of premium and chose not to go in for increase of authorised share capital merely to avoid payment of statutory fees is an important pointer necessitating investigation. Money allegedly received on account of share application can be roped in under Section 68 of the Income Tax Act if the source of the receipt is not satisfactorily established by the assessee. Reference in this regard may be made to the judgement in the case of Sumati Dayal –Vs- CIT (supra) wherein Their Lordships held that any sum “found credited in the books of the assessee for any previous year, the same may be charged to income tax….”. We are unable to accept the submission that any further investigation is futile because the money was received on capital account. The Special Bench in the case of Sophia Finance Ltd. (supra) opined that “the use of the words “any sum found credited in the books” in Section 68 indicates that the said section is very widely worded and an Income-tax Officer is not precluded from making an enquiry as to the true nature and source thereof even if the same is credited as receipt of share application money. Mere fact that the payment was received by cheque or that the applicants were companies, borne on the file of Registrar of Companies were held to be neutral facts and did not prove that the transaction was genuine as was held in the case of CIT –Vs- Nova Promoters and Finlease (P) Ltd. (supra). Similar views were expressed by this Court in the case of CIT –Vs- Precision Finance Pvt. Ltd. (supra). We need not decide in this case as to whether the proviso to Section 68 of the Income Tax Act is retrospective in nature. To that extent the question is kept open. We may however point out that the Special Bench of Delhi High Court in the case of Sophia Finance Ltd. (supra) held that “the ITO may even be justified in trying to ascertain the source of depositor”. Therefore, the submission that the source of source is not a relevant enquiry does not appear to be correct. We find no substance in the submission that the exercise of power under Section 263 by the Commissioner was an act of reactivating stale issues. In the case of Gabriel India Ltd. (supra) the CIT was unable to point out any error in the explanation furnished by the assessee. Whereas in the present case we have tabulated the evidence which was before the assessing officer which should have provoked him to make further investigation. The assessing officer did not attach any importance to that aspect of the matter as discussed above by us
Recent Comments