Jurisprudentiol - Thursday's cases

By Vijay Kumar

Legal Corner Icon — the image was hosted by the publisher and was not captured.Service Tax

Appellant, Mandap keeper collecting advance from customers inclusive of service tax and depositing ST - party plot sealed by Municipal corporation and appellant returning booking amount and ST to customers - in such cases, refund is governed not in terms of s.11B of CEA, 1944 but rule 6(3) of STR, 1994: CESTAT

THE appellants are engaged in providing taxable service under the category of ‘Mandap Keeper'. The appellant have collected some advance payment along with Service Tax from the customers and deposited such Service Tax collected to the Government account. Subsequently, the party plot was sealed by an order of Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation due to which the party plot could not be given for the intended purposes. The appellant cancelled the bookings for the party plots and at the request of customers refunded the booking amount along with the Service Tax collected by them.

Income Tax

Whether when assessee is given many opportunities to explain how rental income has become business income as claimed in return, lack of response from assessee justifies re-assessment u/s 147 - YES: HC

THE issue before the Bench is - Whether when assessee is given many opportunities to explain how rental income has become business income as claimed in the return, lack of response from the assessee justifies re-assessment u/s 147. YES is the HC's answer.

Central Excise

State government exempting unit from their Sales Tax liability under Package Scheme of Incentives, 1993 as applicant has set up unit in backward area - however, tractors not exempted under Maharashtra VAT Act, 2002 - Prima facie case made for waiver of adjudged dues - Stay granted: CESTAT

BY denying the benefit of notification 23/2003-CE dated 31.03.2003, a demand of more than Rs.210 Crores has been confirmed along with interest and penalties against the applicant (a 100% EOU) by the Commissioner of Central Excise, Pune-III.

Incidentally, many of the assessees have realized by now that there is no reason for getting overawed by such ballooning demands for they almost always have a very short shelf life in their records and only help the officers win some brownie points during its life span.

See our Columns Thursday for the judgements