Jurisprudentiol – Friday's cases

By Vijay Kumar

Legal Corner Icon — the image was hosted by the publisher and was not captured.Central Excise

Subsequent reduction in prices by passing on higher discounts to the customers after clearance of the goods cannot alter the excise duty liability - refund claim rejected - Revenue appeals allowed: CESTAT

M/S Videocon are manufacturers of Colour TVs and sell the same from their sales depots situated at various places. The assessee had filed price declarations under Rule 173C of the CER, 1944, declaring therein the assessable value of the goods cleared to its various depots from where the goods were sold to the dealers. At the time of finalization of its account for the year 1996-97,it was noticed that the assessee had claimed less deduction on account of the discounts passed on its dealers, whereas it had actually passed on higher amount of discounts than those declared in the declarations filed with the department. Hence a revised price declaration was filed by the assessee on 17/06/97 claiming higher discounts retrospectively, i.e. with effect from October 1996 onwards. Consequently, the assessee filed 9 refund claims.

Income Tax

Whether Sec 54F benefit is not available merely because assessee had initiated construction of house property before sale of shares - NO: Delhi HC

THE assessee, an individual, had sold shares and the sale proceeds of Rs.54,86,965/- were invested in construction of house property. Exemption was claimed u/s 54F in the return of income filed for AY 2009-10. Amount of Rs.37,99,000/- was utilised in the construction before date of filing of return and Rs.16,87,965/- was deposited in a capital gains account in the prescribed bank before the due date of filing of the return. During assessment, AO rejected the claim for benefit u/s 54F on two grounds. Firstly, AO held that the construction of the house had commenced before the date of sale of shares and secondly, the construction was not completed within three years after the date of said sale.

The issue before the Bench is - Whether Sec 54F benefit is not available merely because assessee had initiated construction of house property before sale of shares. And the answer goes against the Revenue.

Service Tax

Appellant taking registration but not paying Service tax and not filing returns - three years later they started paying ST for the period 2002 onwards on suomotu basis with interest - imposition of penalties u/s 76 & 77 justified: CESTAT

THE appellant had obtained registration as a service provider on 28.11.2003. Due to unavoidable circumstances, they could not pay ST on the due dates but they started paying the service tax suomotu from December, 2005 with interest. In the present case, investigation started on 16.06.2006 and the SCN was issued on 23.4.2008. Inasmuch as since they started paying ST along with interest suomotu there is no intention on the part of the appellant to evade service tax, submitted the appellant. They also informed that even though after August 2006 they had paid ST on due dates, the adjudicating authority had not considered the same; that their computer had crashed and the CA had neither recovered the ST nor paid the same. They seek invocation of section 80 of the FA, 1994 for waiver of penalty.

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