High Court of Punjab & Haryana
Check gate authorities could not possibly go into intricate questions as to whether it was branch or inter-state sale

STATE OF PUNJAB AND ANOTHER
Vs
M/s SHREYANS INDUSTRIES LTD

13th August, 2014

Held that the drivers of the vehicles had the invoices in the form of stock transfer and GRs with them. Even if the drivers had some document showing that the goods were to be unloaded at the address of CWC stores, still the documents which the drivers were carrying could not be said to be ingenuine or transaction doubtful - If there was any doubt then the matter should have been reported to the Assessing Authority rather than conducting proceedings under Section 14-B of the Act. Proceedings under Section 14-B of the Act are summary proceedings and the authorities at the ICC could not possibly go into intricate questions as to whether it was branch or inter-state sale.

Hon'ble High Court also relied on the earlier judgment of the same Court in the case - GSTR No.10 of 1998 (M/s Devi Dass Gopal Krishan Ltd., Moga v. State of Punjab), decided on 16.2.2009 and specifically quoted "However, the provisions do not permit the officer to go to the extent of determining the nature of the transaction, which, in fact, lies within the jurisdiction of the regular assessing authority".

Supreme Court of India
Retained amount of Sales Tax will form part of the transaction value for the purpose of levy Excise Duty.

 COMMISSIONER OF CENTRAL EXCISE, DELHI-III
Vs
M/s MARUTI SUZUKI INDIA LTD

3rd September, 2014

Held- There is no doubt that 50% of the sales tax collected was retained by the assessee and was not actually paid to the exchequer nor was it actually payable since the HPC permitted the assessee to retain that amount Therefore, whichever way the issue is looked at, the fact remains that the assessee retained with it 50% of the sales tax collected from its customers and it was neither actually paid to the exchequer nor was it actually payable to the exchequer. That being the position, the transaction value was required to be calculated by including the amount of about Rs . 22.44 crores retained by the assessee.

Full text of the judgment not yet received

DELHI VAT CIRCULAR, WHETHER SAME THEORY WILL APPLY ON SECTION 82(A) OF AVAT ACT, 2003

CIRCULAR ISSUED IN REFERENCE TO DELHI VAT:-

New Delhi: 03.09.2014

GOVERNMENT OF NATIONAL CAPITAL TERRITORY OF DELHI
DEPARTMENT OF TRADE AND TAXES - POLICY BRANCH
No.F.3(458)/Policy/VAT/2014/335-341
 

CIRCULAR NO. 10 OF 2014-2015

Third proviso to section 74(1) of Delhi Value Added Tax Act, 2004 was inserted vide Notification No.F.14(6)/LA-2011/Iclaw/193 dated 28/09/11 which was made effective from 01/10/2011 vide Notification No. No.3(15)Fin.(Rev-I)/2011-12/ssf/113 dated 30/09/2011. The proviso is reproduced as under:-
“PROVIDED ALSO that the Commissioner may, after giving to the dealer an opportunity of being heard, may direct the dealer to deposit an amount deemed reasonable, out of the amount under dispute, before such objection is entertained.”

Since the above Notification came into effect from, 01/10/2011, the Objection Hearing Authorities can impose a pre-condition on the dealer to deposit an amount out of the amount under dispute, before such objection is entertained, only in case the objection pertains to tax periods after the above said amendment.
This issues with the approval of the Commissioner, Value Added Tax conveyed vide diary No. 1266 dated 27.08.2014.

COMMENT :-
Section 82 (A) has been inserted in Assam VAT Act, 2003 on 8th April, 2008, which contains "
An application by a dealer or person shall not be entertained by the Commissioner unless such application is accompanied by satisfactory proof of payment of minimum twenty five percent of the disputed tax, penalty, if any, imposed and the interest accrued thereon, if any............................" The aforesaid sub-section was not inserted with any retrospective effect. I have tried in my book "VAT Laws in Assam" to interpret the aforesaid sub-section and opined that the condition of pre-deposit is applicable in cases of tax periods after the date of 8th April, 2009.

For my comments on this point, please click here

Lease transaction- Tax tro be levied as per the alw prevailing on the date of lease (not on the date of payment)

High Court of Karnataka

Tax laws applicable on the date of lease of the goods will govern and not the laws on date of receiving the payment.

The State of Karnataka

Vs.

M/s. Lease Plan India Limited

06/08/2014:

Respondent assessee leased vehicle to its customer on some date prior to introduction of KVAT Act  for a period of five years on rental payable monthly. The said lease transaction, being subsequent sale was not taxable in earlier Act. Held-After the coming into force of the new Act, the assessee has not leased any car to his customers. Lease was prior to 1.4.2005. It is for a period of 5 years. Under the terms of the agreement, the customer has to pay lease rents for every month for a period of 5 years. Therefore, though the assessee continued to receive rentals every month after 1.4.2005, it is in pursuance of a sale which took place prior to 1.4.2005. As no sale has taken place after 1.4.2005, the liability to pay tax under Section 3 does not arise.

For full text of judgment- Please click here

CBDT issued new Guidelines for Manual Scrutiny Selection

2nd September-2014, New Delhi


CBDT has issued criteria and procedure for compulsory manual selection of cases for scrutiny during the financial year 2014-2015.


For full text of the instruction:-Please click here

CBDT says: Value Taxpayer’s time and do not make them wait

The  CBDT in its office memorandum  dated 22.08.2014 has pointed out that few Assessing officers, while issuing notices for appearance,  indicates a standard time to all the respondents and therefore many persons called for hearing etc on a day by an officer are given the same time for appearance and the persons are made to wait for their turn. It has been pointed out that such actions, apart from causing avoidable inconvenience to the taxpayers/ witnesses/ representatives etc cause great embarrassment to the Government. All officers have been advised to maintain the appointment schedule strictly in spirit with the Citizen’s Charter, 2014 of the Department which specifically provides that the Department shall endeavour “to adhere to the schedule of appointments with taxpayers”. All Supervisory officers, i.e. the CCsIT, CsIT and the Addl. CsIT have been requested to ensure that officers reporting to them strictly comply with this instruction and avoid fixing multiple appointments at the same time. 

For  copy of the memo-Please Click here

Claim of Input Tax Credit, if the sellers found non existing

HIGH COURT OF KARNATAKA

M/S. MILAN PLYWOOD SUPPLIERS

VS.

STATE OF KARNATAKA

Date of order- 10^th July, 2014

Mere existence of tax invoice does not ipso facto lead one to the conclusion that the goods had been sold to the assessee – Assessing Authority should have made an enquiry to find out the genuineness of the transaction as set out by the Tribunal. It is only after such enquiry if the Assessing Authority is satisfied that the transaction in question is genuine one, the assessee has paid the money, he has received the goods and necessary entries are made in the books of accounts of the assessee, then merely because of the dealer has not remitted the tax would not enable the Assessing Authority to deny the benefit to the assessee. 

For full text of the judgment-  Please click here

Period in which the claim of goods return under CST Act can be made

HIGH COURT OF PUNJAB & HARYANA

M/s. Modern Dairies Limited
Vs.
The State of Haryana and others

Claim of credit of goods return under CST Act can be claimed only in the quarter in which the gods were returned.

Date of order 10/07/2014
While dealing with the question that whether Hon'ble Tribunal was justified in holding that the sales return are allowed to be deducted only in the year to which it relates and not in the period during which it has been returned back ignoring Rule 22(4) read with Section 9(2) of the CST Act, Hon'ble High Court refer to the provisions of Rule 22 (4) of the Haryana Value Added Tax Rules, 2003 and observed that "the assessee is not entitled to claim the benefit of return of goods sold to any person in any other quarter except the quarter in which the goods have been returned. In our opinion, no other meaning can be assigned to the said rule".Matter remanded

For full text of judgment- please click here
Readers may also refer to - 1983(53)STC 48

GUJARAT HIGH COURT- REDUCTION OF ITC IN CASE OF CST SALES, JUSTIFIED

High Court of GUJARAT
Reversal of Input tax Credit (2%), if the goods are sold in course of inter-state trade or commerce- Sustained

KADWANI FORGE LTD. & OTHERS

Vs.

STATE OF GUJARAT & OTHERS

Date: 22nd July 2014

The Court held-

 "It appears that the impugned notifications are issued reducing the input tax credit to the extent of 2% on the goods supplied outside State of Gujarat in the larger public interest and to ensure adequate funds in the development programme of the State. Reduction of the rate of central sales tax from 4% to 3% with effect from 01.04.2007 and from 3% to 2% with effect from 01.06.2008 and the failure on the part of the Central Government to compensate the State for the losses on account of the aforesaid reduction can be said to be
one of the cause and/or reason. It appears that as the State has suffered loss of thousands of crores of revenue due to the said reduction and the Central Government failed to compensate the said losses and it has been found that the tax revenue of the State has been adversely affected, when the impugned notifications are issued it can neither be said to be arbitrary nor illegal and/or unconstitutional."

For full text- Please click here

Held by High Court of Karnataka:-

M/s. MicroFx

Vs

The State of Karnataka

09/07/2014
When the goods involved is a "portable handheld ticketing machine" that is how the assessee has described the machine and that is how the customers have also understood it and in the Central Excise Tariff Act this ticket issuing machines are expressly included in Entry 8470, the Court cannot hold that it falls under 8471 especially when it specifically states that "not elsewhere specified or included" - By virtue of the words used in 8471 "not elsewhere specified or included", 8471 do not include ticket issuing machines. When ticket issuing machines are expressly mentioned in 8470 and in the notification issued on 31.3.2006 under the heading "the Information Technology product" 8470 is not included, the assessee is not entitled to the benefit of 4% tax – Revision petitions dismissed.


For full text of Judgment- Please click here

TRIPURA-VAT- TDS ON CONSIDERATION FOR RIGHT TO USE OF GOODS

F.1- 1(43)- TAX/2013 (P-II)

Dated 16/08/2014

Published on 20/08/2014

Amendment of sub-rule (2) of Rule 7 of the Tripura Value Added Tax Rules, 2005.

Provision for deducting tax at source on consideration payable for right to use of goods.

For Notification- PLEASE CLICK HERE

Punjab Last date of filing VAT-15 for q.e. 30/06/2014 extended to 25/08/2014.

Dated: 19th August, 2014

PUBLIC NOTICE 

In the light large number of representations received from lawyers and trade bodies, it is notified that last date of filing of VAT-15 return of Quarter-1 ending 30th June, 2014 for the year 2014-15, has been extended to 25th August, 2014. However, dates for payment of tax will remain unchanged.

For Notification, Please Click here

RAJASTHAN- VAT RATE- SPICES & DHANIA

Amendments in Schedule -IV of Rajasthan VAT Act, 2003 regarding Spices - order dated 19/08/2014.

For Notification -PLEASE CLICK HERE

RAJASTHAN VAT- RATE OF TAX ON WHOLE CORRIANDER-- SABUT DHANIA DATED 19/08/2014

AMENDMENT IN SCHEDULE VI OF RAJASTHAN VAT ACT, 2003 REGARDING DHANIA IN WHOLE FORM- DATED 19/08/2014

For Notification- Please Click here

JHARKHAND- TERMS & CONDITIONS FOR SUGAM-G

Terms and conditions under Sugam-G [in Hindi]

FOR FULL NOTIFICATION- PLEASE CLICK HERE

WEST BENGAL- TRADE CIRCULAR NO. 13/2014- DATED 13/08/.2014

e-service for cancellation of Certificate of Registration.

In order to extend e-service to the dealers, Directorate is continuously engaged in introducing newer e-services or expanding already available e-services. The latest of such services, that is going to be introduced, is the online facility to be available for filing application for cancellation of certificate of registration by a dealer, registered under the WBVAT Act, 2003, WBST Act, 1994 or CST Act, 1956..............

For Circular Please click here

CIRCULAR- DATED 18/08/2014- KARNATAKA

Enabling the dealers to download Statutory forms such as declaration in C form F Forms etc. who have failed to declare the purchase value in the return or wrongly declared the value in different boxes other than the appropriate boxes of the return but paid taxes as applicable on the corresponding sales of such goods-reg. For Circular- Please click here

यह घटना न सिर्फ निंदनीय है बल्कि सभ्य समाज में किसी भी तरह स्वीकार्य नहीं है. कर चोरी एक अपराध है इसमें कोई संदेह नहीं रहना चाहिए. कर संग्रह करने व कर चोरी रोकने हेतु सरकार ने काफी बड़ा बिभाग बना रखा है और यदि यह बिभाग गंभीरता पूर्वक और ईमानदारना तरीके से कार्य करे तो कर चोरी काफी हद तो रुक सकती है. पर.......