TIOL-DDT 1773 · the untouched capture
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<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/loose.dtd"> <html> <head> <title>Untitled Document</title> <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1"> </head> <body> <p align="justify"><font size="2"><strong><font color="#663399" size="3" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">TIOL-DDT 1773 </font><font size="3" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"></font><font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><br> </font></strong><font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><strong>12.01.2012 <br> Thursday </strong></font></font></p> <p align="center"><font color="#006600" size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><strong>FTP - Minimum Export Price of Onions </strong></font></p> <p align="justify"><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><strong>GOVERNMENT</strong> has amended Notification No 86(RE - 2010)/2009-2014 dated 28.11.2011 read with Notification No 75(RE - 2010)/2009-2014 dated 20.09.201. The Minimum Export Price (MEP) of all varieties of onions except Bangalore Rose Onions and Krishnapuram Onions will be USD 150 per Metric Ton F.O.B. It was USD 250 per Metric Ton as notified on 28.11.2011. For Bangalore Rose Onions and Krishnapuram Onions it will be USD 250 per MT F.O.B instead of USD 300 per MT as notified on 28.11.2011. </font></p> <p align="justify"><a href="http://www.taxindiaonline.com/RC2/subCatDesc.php3?subCatDisp_Id=45&filename=notification/dgft/2010/dgft10not094.htm" target="_blank"><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><strong>DGFT Notification No. 94/(RE-2010)/2009-2014, Dated: January 11, 2012 </strong></font></a></p> <p align="center"><font color="#006600" size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><strong>PRAGATI KI DHADKAN - Signature Tune of Indian Customs Launched </strong></font></p> <p align="center"><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><strong><font color="#663399"><img src="http://www.taxindiaonline.com/RC2/image/stories/sig_tune.jpg" alt="Legal Corner Icon" width="500" height="333" hspace="5" border="0" align="center"></font></strong></font></p> <p align="justify"><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">The Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee, yesterday launched the signature tune of Indian Customs <strong>"Pragati ki Dhadkan". </strong>The signature tune has been specially composed by noted music director Adesh Srivastava. This Signature tune marks a curtain raiser to the Golden Jubilee Celebrations of the Indian Customs Act, 1962. This tune will also be played alongside the tableau of the Central Board of Excise and Customs during the Republic Day Parade on Rajpath on 26 th January,2012. </font></p> <p align="justify"><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">The Finance Minister said that the year 2012 marks the 50th year of the Customs Act 1962. He congratulated the officers of the department for taking various initiatives including the participation in the Republic Day Parade 2012 through a Tableau entitled <strong>Indian Customs -The Guardian of Our Economic Frontiers </strong> to inform the tax payers and general public about the milestone event and requesting all concerned to join them in nation building. </font></p> <p align="justify"><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">While the pictures and reports about the FM launching the tune, the tune itself is not available anywhere. </font></p> <p align="center"><font color="#006600" size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><strong> Indian Babus - Worst in Asia </strong></font></p> <p align="justify"><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><strong>HONG KONG</strong> based <em>Political & Economic Risk Consultancy </em> has rated India as having the worst bureaucracy in Asia. Singapore has the best babu in Asia followed by Hong Kong, Thailand, Taiwan and Japan. Indonesia, Philippines and China are close to India with incompetent babus. </font></p> <p align="justify"><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">The Survey concluded that: </font></p> <blockquote> <p align="justify"><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">1. India's inefficient bureaucracy was largely responsible for most of the complaints that business executive have about the country. </font></p> <p align="justify"><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">2.The complaints included inadequate infrastructure and corruption, where officials were willing to accept under-the- table payments and companies were tempted to pay to overcome bureaucratic inertia and gain government favours. </font></p> <p align="justify"><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">3.Onerous and fickle tax, environmental and other regulations make business in India "so frustrating and expensive”. </font></p> <p align="justify"><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><strong>4. Dealing with court system in India is an unattractive option for companies, and would best be avoided. </strong></font></p> <p align="justify"><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">5. The bureaucrats are rarely held accountable for wrong decisions and it would be extremely difficult to challenge them. This gives them (bureaucrats) terrific powers and could be one of the main reasons why average Indians as well as existing and would-be foreign investors perceive India's bureaucrats negatively. </font></p> </blockquote> <p align="justify"><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">This is a cartoon by Gopal, a retired IAS Officer who is quite familiar to <strong>DDT </strong> readers. </font></p> <p align="center"><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><strong><font color="#663399"><img src="http://www.taxindiaonline.com/RC2/image/stories/Indian_Babus.jpg" alt="Legal Corner Icon" width="300" height="408" hspace="5" border="0" align="center"></font></strong></font></p> <p align="center"><font color="#006600" size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><strong>Customs Officers forge documents to steal Plasma TV </strong></font></p> <p align="justify"><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><strong>A </strong>private firm in Kuwait sends a plasma TV to a lady in Kerala as a gift on the occasion of her house warming. The Cochin Airport Customs promptly slapped a heavy duty and penalty; with the result, the lady abandoned the TV. What should the Customs do now? Perhaps seize/confiscate it and keep it in the Customs warehouse for sale to public? </font></p> <p align="justify"><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">But the Assistant Commissioner had a brilliant idea. He along with a lady Superintendent and a preventive officer prepared a forged baggage declaration and cleared the TV on payment of a duty of Rs. 4635 on a value of Rs. 30,000. The original value was supposed to be Rs. 91,000. </font></p> <p align="justify"><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">Well, the news got to CBI and they promptly registered a case against the three officers. </font></p> <p align="justify"><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">What happened to the TV? The CBI recovered it from the residence of the Assistant Commissioner! The Assistant Commissioner got a TV worth 90,000 for about Rs. 5000 with help from two of his officers and now all of them will go through hell for the next ten years - all for a paltry plasma. </font></p> <p align="justify"><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">Though the craze for <em>phoren </em> goods has come down considerably, of late, latest models of TVs which cost a couple of lakhs in India, which are available at less than half the price abroad, are being routinely brought in by passengers - even students coming from countries like USA. Somehow, even the rich Indians are miserly when it comes to paying Customs duty at airports. They pay small bribes to Customs officers and clear these TVs and brag about it with their friends and relatives and some of them even post details of the amounts of bribes to be paid, on social networks. Even mighty politicians and crusading journalists smuggle in these high value TVs - even without those small bribes! </font></p> <p align="justify"><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">Recently somebody posted this on a website: </font></p> <p align="justify"><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><em>I was carrying a 46-inch LED TV from Singapore and hoping to pay around Rs. 8000 as custom duty (as per my earlier discussions with friends) but the group of fellows (including a lady) [Customs officers] there almost intimidated saying I got to pay 27,000 and settled down for 12,000 at last. I was naive enough to request them for a receipt and they laughed. It made me realize <strong>I am in India after all, my home </strong>. </em></font></p> <p align="center"><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><strong><strong><font color="#006600">Jurispruden</font><font color="#FF6633" size="5">tiol</font><font color="#006600"> – Friday's cases</font></strong></strong></font></p> <p align="justify"><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><strong><font color="#663399"><img src="http://www.taxindiaonline.com/RC2/image/stories/ddt_hammer.jpg" alt="Legal Corner Icon" width="100" height="84" hspace="5" border="0" align="left"></font></strong></font><font color="#663399" size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><strong>Central Excise </strong></font></p> <p align="justify"><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><strong><font color="#FF6633">Central Excise - Deductions towards freight charges were abnormal and incremental over a period of time when compared with prices adopted by other cylinder manufacturers supplying to OMCs - Inclusion of freight charges justified, duty demands upheld - Invocation of extended period of limitation in second set of notices also justified: CESTAT </font></strong></font></p> <p align="justify"><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><strong>THE </strong>appellant-companies are engaged in manufacture of new and empty LPG cylinders for PSU oil marketing companies and entered into agreements with these companies for supply of LPG cylinders. Prior to August 2001, the OMCs were paying freight charges equal to standard railway freight rate per cylinder, irrespective of the amount of actual freight involved in the transportation. From August 2001, the price per cylinder was fixed on gross delivery price (GDP)/net delivery price (NDP) inclusive of all taxes and freight. </font></p> <p align="justify"><font color="#663399" size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><strong>Income Tax </strong></font></p> <p align="justify"><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><strong><font color="#FF6633">Whether revisionary powers can be invoked without pointing out any flaws in the AO's order - NO, says ITAT </font></strong></font></p> <p align="justify"><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><strong>ASSESSEE</strong> Company, engaged in the broadcasting of TV programmes, filed its return of Income claiming deduction of section 80HHF. The AO allowed the claim of the assessee. While examining the records of assessment, CIT found that the AO had wrongly allowed the deduction of Sec 80HHF, as he had not adjusted the brought forward losses with the income eligible for deduction of 80HHF. CIT was of the view that the order of the AO was contrary to the law of Supreme Court declared in <em>IPCA </em>case <em><strong><font size="1">(<a href="http://www.taxindiaonline.com/RC2/subCatDesc.php3?subCatDisp_Id=37&filename=legal/sc/2004/2004-TIOL-26-SC-IT.htm" target="_blank">2004-TIOL-26-SC-IT</a>)</font></strong></em>. The CIT further observed that the AO should have reduced the expenses of foreign technical services incurred by assessee in foreign currency from the ambit of export turnover and total turnover. </font></p> <p align="justify"><font color="#663399" size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><strong>Service Tax </strong></font></p> <p align="justify"><font color="#FF6633" size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><strong>Levy and collection of Income Tax is a sovereign function and issue of PAN cards is in relation to such function - Not leviable to Service Tax under the category of BAS: CESTAT </strong></font></p> <p align="justify"><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><strong>THE</strong> appellant undertakes the services of issue of PAN card (Permanent Account Number Card). For this purpose, they print, supply and distribute application forms to the applicants against payment of a fee of Rs. 5 per application form, receive PAN applications in prescribed form on behalf of the Income Tax Department, validate the applications with the checklist provided by the Income Tax department and carry out verification about the identity and address of the applicants. After receipt of PAN from the National Computer Centre of the Income Tax department, the appellant would print PAN cards and issue the same to the applicants. For these services, they charge a sum of Rs. 60/- from the applicants as authorized by the Income Tax department. The above activity is sought to be classified under the category of ‘Business Auxiliary Service'. </font></p> <p align="justify"><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><strong><font color="#663399">See our columns Tomorrow for the judgements </font></strong></font></p> <p align="justify"><font color="#FF6666" size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">Until Tomorrow with more DDT </font></p> <p align="justify"><font color="#FF6666" size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">Have a Nice Day. </font></p> <p align="justify"><font color="#FF6666" size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">Mail your comments to</font> <font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><a href="mailto:vijaywrite@taxindiaonline.com"><strong>vijaywrite@taxindiaonline.com </strong></a></font></p> </body> </html>