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By Vijay Kumar

Central Excise

For the umpteenth time, Tribunal tries to teach Commissioner (Appeals) what his job is – Matter remanded for passing a reasoned & speaking order

''THE impugned order shows that a mechanical order was typed out leaving two blank spaces to be filled up. One was relating to the date of hearing and the other was name of the Consultant who appeared for hearing before the Authority. Also the Appellate Order was signed without any date by a public servant engaged in administration of justice. Added to this, top portion of the body of the impugned order was still left blank without mentioning the order number.”

Netizens, these are not our observations but those of the Tribunal which was hearing an appeal filed by the assessee.

Income Tax

Compounding of offence - CBDT has authority to issue instructions, and CCIT to comply with them to accept or reject an application: Delhi HC

UNLIKE Customs & Central Excise, compounding of offence under the Income Tax Act has a chequered history. Though many finer points of the CBDT guidelines and also the powers vested in the CCIT/DG under Sec 279(2) have been settled by the judiciary but it continues to be perceived as a right by most tax offenders. The latest case is one such example where the Delhi High Court observes that it was a clear case of well thought out stragegy of tax evasion. The Bench once again clarified that the CBDT has the necessary powers u/s 119(1) of the Act and also a critical role to play in directing the CCIT/ DGIT as to whether a particular case is fit for compounding or not , and can advise the authorised officer to deny the same at any stage of processing of the application for compounding.

What tilted the case in favour of Revenue are the clearly-worded Instruction which illustrates three situations for compounding:

Central Excise

D-linked – Excise Valuation Case – sandwiching cost of IT peripherals into value of driver software - Pay pre-deposit of Rs One crore, says Tribunal

THEY say that the best way to reduce your duty liability is to indulge in undervaluation because experience says that on almost on all occasions the law falls short to pin you down & you scrape through!

There was this case of the assessee collecting higher transportation charges from his clients & the department alleging that it is only the “actual transportation” costs that can be allowed as a deduction from the Assessable value. Consequently, the said “ excess charges of transportation ” have to be loaded into the assessable value of the manufactured goods & differential duty paid thereon, is what the authorities alleged.

The “transport” matter traveled up to the Supreme Court in the case of Baroda Electric Motors [ 2002-TIOL-96-SC-CX ] & when the Apex Court held that the duty of excise is a tax on the manufacture and not a tax on the profits made by a dealer on transportation.

See our columns Monday for the judgements