Orders/notices sent by CESTAT registry deemed to be duly served if they weren’t retuned back

Excise & Customs : Where notices/orders sent by CESTAT Registry are not returned back, they are to be treated as served on assessee, especially when, subsequent communications at same address were duly received by assessee

Scrutiny assessment set aside by HC as it was made without issuing notice under section 143(2)

IT : Where no notice was issued under section 143(2) to assessee, assessment made under section 143(3) was to be set aside

Unjust enrichment would not apply to refund of ST paid under reverse charge when services weren’t ac

Service Tax : If assessee has paid service tax under reverse charge without actually receiving service from abroad, said services cannot be charged to service tax and amount thereof is liable to refunded without applying unjust enrichment, as burden of service tax has been borne by assessee

AO couldn’t treat agricultural income as income from other sources when assessee had filed due recor

IT: Where assessee, in support of his claim of earning agricultural income, produced relevant agricultural record and, moreover, income so earned had been returned and accepted by Department year after year, impugned order passed by Assessing Officer that income in question was taxable as 'income from other sources' was to be set aside

HC upholds reassessment as assessee failed to pay capital gains tax under domestic laws in view of I

IT/ILT: Where in terms of article 14 of Indo-UK DTAA, assessee was a resident of India and he had to pay capital gains in terms of domestic law of this country, if he did not pay same and merely gave a note along with returns, to which Assessing Officer had not applied his mind, reassessment was justified

Month means British calendar month and not '30 days' for purpose of filing an appeal before Commissi

Service Tax : For appeal before Commissioner (Appeals), time-limit for filing appeal has been expressed in 'months' whereunder 'month' would mean 'British Calendar Month' and cannot be construed '30 days'

Mere solvency of a Co. won’t be a valid ground to set aside sec. 434 notice requiring payment of deb

CL : Solvency of company would not constitute a stand alone ground for setting aside a notice under section 434(1)(a) meaning thereby that if a debt is undisputedly owing, then it has to be paid

SEBI's norms raising investment limit of anchor investor is applicable to issuers filing offer docs

SEBI : Amendments to SEBI (Issue of Capital and Disclosure Requirements) Regulations, 2009 - Increasing The Investment Bucket for Anchor Investor and Regulations Concerning The Preferential Issue Norms

All directors other than promoters can't be deemed as willful defaulters; RBI's master circular is a

CL : Reserve Bank of India was within its powers to issue RBI Master Circular DBOD No.CID-BC 1/20.16.2003/2011-12, dated 2-7-2012 relating to wilful default and wilful defaulters -Master Circular does not suffer from vice of impermissible delegation of a legislative power. It confirms exactly to power granted - Master Circular has force of law and could be termed as a statutory circular

India Says Not Considering Immediate Gold Import Duty Cut

India is not considering an immediate cut in gold import duties, Trade Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said on Wednesday, extending a policy that has helped narrow the country's trade deficit but is believed to have led to an increase in smuggling.

India's trade and current account deficits have narrowed sharply since New Delhi raised the duty on gold imports to 10 percent from 2 percent through a series of steps last year, helping revive confidence in the country's economy.

But the duties have also fuelled a belief that smuggling has surged, causing some suspicions about distorted data and raising expectations the government will ease some of its restrictions.

"Yes, the current account deficit has come down. But immediately, there is no plan to reduce import duty," Trade Minister Nirmala Sitharaman told reporters.

"I cannot say whether gold smuggling has increased because of hike in import duty," she added in reply to a question.

India will maintain the import duty just as the country is about to enter the key festival period, which traditionally leads to a surge in demand for gold that are given out as gifts.

Although the move at first caused gold prices to rise, they have fallen this year due to a decline in global markets and a stronger rupee.

Source:- af.reuters.com

India Drops Plan To Impose Solar-Panel Duties On Foreign Firms

India's new government has decided not to slap anti-dumping duties on solar panel imports from the United States, China and other countries, reversing a policy of the previous administration, a minister said Wednesday.

Under the previous left-leaning Congress government, India announced it would impose duties on imported solar panels to shield domestic manufacturers who said their prices were being undercut by foreign rivals.

The order to impose the duties emerged from a government-ordered probe launched in 2011. But the decision needed to be validated by the finance ministry within a certain time period before it could be implemented.

"There was no notification [of the Congress government's order]. We allowed it to lapse," junior finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman told a news conference.

New right-wing Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who took office in late May as head of the Bharatiya Janata Party government, is a strong proponent of solar power and set up various projects when he served earlier as chief minister of the prosperous western state of Gujarat.

Blackouts in India are frequent and solving the country's energy shortage is seen as key to helping power industrial economic growth. In the last few years, India has been flipping the switch on a series of huge new solar energy projects.

Greater economies of scale, better technology and cheap foreign panels that turn sunshine into electricity have hammered down once sky-high solar generation costs to competitive levels.

To build solar plants, India has been importing equipment, mainly from China, but also from the United States and Taiwan. Indian companies have insisted that unless imports are curbed, the country will never develop an indigenous solar industry.

Since 2010, India has hiked installed solar power capacity from a meagre 17.8 megawatts to more than 2,600MW, official figures show, as part of the government's aim to make "the sun occupy center-stage" in the energy mix.

India has set a target of generating 20,000MW of grid-connected solar power and 2,000MW of off-grid generation, such as roof panels, by 2022.

Power Minister Piyush Goyal had said earlier that domestic solar equipment manufacturing capacity of 700MW-800MW was insufficient to meet the government's ambitious solar energy plans.

There was no immediate reaction available from Indian solar equipment manufacturers, many of which have been closing down in the face of foreign competition.

Source:- industryweek.com

Manufacturing Domestic Market Before Exports

The one challenge which is common right across all countries in the world, without exception, is the need to create more jobs. Even a country like Saudi Arabia, which has more than enough resources to take care of its citizens, wants to create jobs.

A job is clearly not just a means of livelihood but also a way of keeping the country's youth constructively engaged.

Further, the one common approach to creating more jobs globally, without exception, is to encourage manufacturing. India is, therefore, not unique in her approach to try and encourage manufacturing to create more jobs.

As every country wants to encourage manufacturing, the room to export is getting increasingly constrained. Countries are competing with each other, using varying toolsto attract investments.

Some like Brazil, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Algeria and Angola are using the wealth from their natural resources and particularly oil & gas; some like Germany and Scandinavia are using their highly-skilled manpower, some like Singapore and Dubai are using efficient governance and some like China and India are using the demand of their large population.

But it is clear that every country needs some competitive advantage to attract investment in manufacturing.

The two levers that India has with her to attract manufacturing investment are the demand of the domestic market and the quantum of intellectual capital. India has thus far achieved only limited success in using either of these two levers to attract investment in manufacturing.

The first point that we need to accept is that manufacturing in India will succeed only on the basis of the domestic market, and exports can at best be supplementary.

Attempting to base a manufacturing strategy predominantly based on exports will take a long time to achieve because manufacturing in India has competitive disadvantages like high cost of power, high cost of capital, infrastructure bottlenecks and lack of core technology. We, therefore, have to first ensure that our domestic market is attractive in terms of scale, is profitable for manufacturers and is a place which is easy to do business in.

Exports will then follow. It is indeed ironic if on the one hand we position India as a large and attractive market but on the other make policies that essentially rely on promoting exports without addressing the challenges of the domestic market.

It is critical for India to be one homogenous market that provides scale. Uniform taxation, uniform standards, uniform regulation, uniform laws, free movement of goods and people are critical in making this happen. We currently have challenges in each of these areas which present India as a very fragmented market.

Secondly, our own strength in innovation to meet our domestic customer needs will have to precede manufacturing. When we talk about manufacturing in India, it is predominantly based on technology from the developed world. The developed world technology has been essentially designed to meet the requirements of those market, which we then try and tinker with to suit our own local needs. While we in India have done brilliantly in innovating on disruptive business models, we have done little innovation on new products meant for our specific needs.

The process to innovate new products has to begin by a good understanding of market needs and even more importantly, to then convert that understanding into a sharp definition of a product.

Once the product definition has been set , it is a relatively easier job to actually make that product. Converting a market need into a sharp product definition is a rare skill, which is a combination of market understanding, knowledge of technology and entrepreneurship.

It is evident that judgement plays a crucial part in innovation. It is expected that failures will be part of the game. If we are to encourage innovation, then we also need to embrace failures and even celebrate them. Our culture in India does not respect failures and, in fact, ridicules them. This will have to change if we want to get manufacturing going.One way of encouraging innovation and eliminating the "losses" due to failure is to value intellectual property.

Source:- economictimes.indiatimes.com

Service recipient can file refund claim if burden of tax is borne by it

Service Tax : Section 11B of Central Excise Act, 1944 (applicable to service tax) provides for a purchaser/service recipient presenting a claim for refund, provided he is able to establish that he has not passed on burden to another person; hence, refund claim by service recipient for refund of excess service tax borne by him, is valid

Gain arising from sale of inherited land after its conversion into smaller plots was taxable as busi

IT: Where assessee converted ancestral land into smaller plots and after providing road, parking space etc., sold same over a period of years, assessee's claim that he converted capital asset i.e. land into stock-in-trade and, thus, income arising from sale of land was taxable as business income was to be accepted

No input tax credit if VAT return didn’t contain details of input credit and particulars of register

CST & VAT: Where assessee in returns filed had not claimed any input tax credit and they did not contain particulars of registered dealers from whom purchases had been made and actual tax paid on such purchases, assessee was not entitled to input tax credit

Indian Cos. can issue shares to NRs under automatic route if they comply with FDI Sectoral cap and o

FEMA/ILT/INDIAN ACTS & RULES : FEM (Transfer or Issue of Security by A Person Resident Outside India) (Twelfth Amendment) Regulations, 2014 – Amendment in Schedule 1

VAT Rules amended by Rajasthan Govt.; mandating e-registration and initiating Composition Scheme for

CST & VAT/INDIAN ACTS & RULES : Rajasthan Value Added Tax (Amendment) Rules, 2014 – Amendment in Rules 14, 16, 17, 18, 19, 21, 22, 31, 38 & Form VAT-45A; Substitution of Rules 9, 12, 15, 19A, 40, 71, 72, Form VAT-01, Form Vat-07A, VAT-08A, Form VAT-10, Form VAT-10A, Form VAT-11, Form VAT-40, Form VAT-40A, Form VAT-58 ; Omission of Rules 12A, 40A, 67, 67A, 67B, 68, 69, 69A, 70, Form VAT-01A, Form VAT-12, Form VAT-16, Form VAT-40, Form VAT-41A and Insertion of Rules 17A, 22A, 79A, Form VAT-06a, Fo

Income generated by Museum from ancillary activities couldn’t be deemed as business receipt; sec. 11

IT : Where assessee, was settled with object of establishing a museum portraying pictures, paintings, antique coins etc., its activities were to be regarded as falling under category of 'general public utility' within meaning of section 2(15)

All types of coachings/training are covered under Commercial trainings services irrespective of degr

Service Tax : Taxability under 'commercial training or coaching' services will arise irrespective of : (a) discipline or academic areas (b) nomenclature or description of institute or establishment, as a coaching or training centre or an educational institution; (c) whether institute or establishment is incorporated by or registered under any law; and (d) distinctions on basis of curriculum, course content, teaching methodology, course duration or otherwise

Erecting bus queue shelters by advertising Co. isn’t pre-operative exp. even if they aren’t yet read

IT: Where in pursuance of contract awarded by NDMC for construction of Bus Queue Shelters (BQS), assessee entered into manufacturing agreement with third party for manufacture and installation of BQS and also made advance payment, assessee's business could be said to commence in relevant year and, therefore, revenue authorities were not justified in rejecting assessee's claim for deduction of certain expenses taking a view that said expenses were in nature of pre-operative expenses as business w

Now 'Telangana' State covered under the jurisdiction of Development Commissioner of Vishakapatnam SE

SEZ/INDIAN ACTS & RULES : Special Economic Zones (Amendment) Rules, 2014 – Amendment in Annexure III

Foreign Co. had to file return in response to sec. 148 notice even if issue of existence of PE was i

IT/ILT: Even where existence of PE of petitioner non-resident company was in dispute, if petitioner had not filed return in response to notice issued under section 148, it did not act strictly in accordance with law

Waiver of loan couldn’t be held as remission under sec. 41(1) if loan amount was never claimed as de

IT: Where principal amount of loan being never been claimed by assessee as its expenditure, its waiver would not amount to income of assessee

Supreme Court allows appellant to produce authorization for complaint filed on dishonor of cheque

Negotiable Instrument: Failure to produce authorisation to file complaint under section 138 could not be ground for dismissal of complaint