#  Hon’ble Supreme Court has vacated stay granted by Delhi High Court on renting of immovable property service. The case scheduled for hearing on 20-01-2010 

#  Right to Information (Regulation of Fee and Cost) Rules, 2005 and the Central Information Commission (Appeal Procedure) Rules, 2005 has been superceded and reintroduced as Right to Information Rules, 2010. The new Rules would include the provisions for payment of fees through electronic mode (Rule 6) as well as appearance through video conferencing (Rule 14) ...Click here for RTI Rules, 2010  http://www.taxindiaonline.com/RC2/pdfdocs/wnew/rti_rules.pdf

 #  NALSAR, Hyderabad has proposed a regular full-time course for paralegals to widen the scope of legal education to include non-LLB professionals for imparting functions of mediators, conciliators, negotiators and counsellors 

#  DEPB scheme extended up to 30-06-2011 

Central Excise

Packaged / Canned software brougt under MRP based assesment under Section 4A with a 15% abatement. With the Computers also under Section 4A with 20% abatement, there couldbe a conflict on valuation of  embedded software... Click here for Notification No. 30/2010-CX.,(N.T.), Dated: December 21, 2010

Customs

Exemption from customs duty of above 5% and whole of all items of machinery, including prime movers, instruments, apparatus and appliances, control gear and transmission equipment and auxiliary equipment (including those required for testing and quality control) and components, required for the initial setting up of a solar power generation project or facility, when imported into India ... Click here for Notification No. 1/2011 dated 06-01-2011

Service Tax

Board clarifes that fumigation of export cargo outside the purview of service tax under Cleaning service ....Click here for Circular.

Exemption granted to transport of goods by rail extended up to April 2011 ... Click here for Notification No. 57/2010-ST dated 21-12-2010

Exemption on management, maintenance or repair extended to bridges, tunnels, dams, airports, railways and transport terminals. With this, both construction as well as management, maintenance and repair of roads, bridges, tunnels, dams, airports, railways and transport terminals are exempted from service tax... Click here for Notification No. 54/2010-ST dated 21-12-2010.

Providing right to use packaged software for commercial exploitation including right to reproduce, distribute etc has been exempted from levy of service tax under Section 65 (105) (zzzze) once appropriate excise duty or customs duty has been paid by the manufacturer-service provider... Click here for Notification No. 53/2010-ST dated 21-12-2010

FTP

Public notice issued on procedure for tracking and tracing of export consignments and pharmaceuticals...  Click here for the Public notice

 M/s Jetlite ( India) Limited vs CCE (2010-TIOL-1715-CESTAT-DEL): Displaying logo of Sahara which sells houses, is not BAS - Adjudicating Authority cannot travel beyond SCN - Failure of the department to prove the charge can neither shift the burden, nor can give any advantage to the department - It is settled law that the charge created by introducing a new entry and consequently taxability thereupon, the question of imposing the duty retrospectively does not arise. The statutory provision did not provide brand promotion to be a taxable service during the relevant period... Click here for the CESTAT Order

New Year greetings from Team SA.

Well, it is January...time for a fresh beginning. Let us start with what is ‘in’ and rocking on cyber space. If you are an internet freak, you will know that you have to update yourself every minute on ‘what is new’ in world of netiquette. Here comes few snippets...

The complete transformation that the English language has undergone during the past three years is evident from the fact that it is no longer a ‘ language’ but is slanguage (slang language). Since I am a compulsory googler I stumble upon lot of these terms and understand that I can accept or reject it but can never overlook it , because it is so rampant and is ‘on the go’ always!!! Neologism at its zenith cries that much abused expression ‘cool’ is replaced by ‘tight’; ‘vehicle’ by ‘whip’; ‘weird is ‘janky’, ‘goodlooking’ is ‘banging’; old ‘super’ is new ‘uber’; ‘chilling out’ is ‘marinating’....the list goes on.
 

Well, I am not going to tell you about the movie, but, my endeavour here is to bring such ‘Ram’ and such ‘Shyam’ in our own tax law backyard, viz., Chapter V of Finance Act, 1994, as amended. Have a look at the Ram and Shyam of Service Tax...
 

GST – THE ASYMMETRY

“An idea can be flawless but its execution will always be full of mistakes”

- Brendt Scowcraft

“Flawless GST!” (That is how the Task Force calls its proposals in its Report)! Whereas in Part I, we saw the parts of the Report of the Task Force singing along symphony with the proposals contained in the First Draft Paper (FDP) released by the Empowered Committee on GST. In this Part let us see a crucial aspect of the GST proposal, where there is a sharp divide between the Empowered Committee and the Task force!

Firstly, regarding the rates for GST, the report, in sharp contrast to the recommendation in the FDP, whereby, multiple layer rates are prescribed, has suggested that only a single positive rate @ 5% for CGST as well as a single positive rate of 7% for SGST for all the goods and services. Secondly, the report also negatives any threshold exemption to the manufactures, over and above the one prescribed above, like the present existing exemption of Rs 1.5 crores and as suggested in the FDP. Last but not the least, the report dismisses the most novel method of Integrated GST (IGST) model proposed by the FDP for the all - important Inter -State transactions ...