Publication

By Anandh Venkataramani Often the dispute when interpreting notifications under tax laws, particularly indirect taxes, is whether the procedural conditions prescribed in the notification is to be strictly complied with, or whether substantial compliance would be sufficient to avail the benefit accorded therein. If strict compliance is required, then the procedure, as prescribed, has to be fol...

By Sonal Singh Baghel In a case where the builder of a fully constructed flat enters into an agreement to sell the same to a buyer, the same will be considered as a sale of immovable property and there is no controversy regarding imposition of sales tax on such a transaction. However, applicability of sales tax on an agreement to sell a flat that is still in the process of construction has la...

By T.D.  Satish Introduction     Anti-dumping investigations are company-specific and in a majority of such investigations, separate margin of dumping are determined for producers/exporters based on data provided by them. But often situation arises wherein large numbers of exporters participate and request for a separate duty margin. Since, anti-dumping investigations are time bound, this...

By R. Subhashree India recently notified the rules for Advance Pricing Arrangement (APA). Though originally part of the Direct Taxes Code (DTC), APA has been implemented now.  It comes shortly after the recommendation of the committee on GAAR which has suggested tweaking of rules to make them more investor friendly. India is often described as a place where transfer pricing is difficult. APA ...

By Manoj Gupta Recently the European Court of Justice gave a landmark ruling laying down certain parameters for granting market economy treatment to the individual exporters from non-market economy (NME) countries. The issue as the one before the court, being more factual, needs to be dealt with on case-to-case basis. However, looking at the trend, particularly during the last one year, it is...

By Iype Mathew Through a press release dated 20th June, 2012 the official spokesperson of the Central Board of Excise & Customs announced the release of guidance paper on service tax titled “Taxation of Services : An Education Guide”.  The guide in the form of notes was issued in the context of the introduction of a big change in the system of levy of tax on services in India.  In fact the ea...

By Bhargav Mansatta   ‘Product under consideration’ (PUC) in an anti-dumping investigation is the imported product which is alleged as being dumped in the domestic market of the investigating country. To this end, Article 2.1 of the Anti-dumping Agreement (ADA) provides as below:     “For the purpose of this Agreement, a product is to be considered as being dumped, i.e. introduced in to th...

By Dr. G. Gokul Kishore  The new Service Tax regime based on negative list has been in operation for a little over one month. Among the numerous changes brought in by the new dispensation, Section 66B of Finance Act, 1994, the new charging section, deserves particular mention. In the earlier regime also, services which are currently not provided but are likely to be provided prospectively ha...

By Bhargav Mansatta       In anti-dumping investigations, ‘all others’ rate is intended to cover exporters who have not participated. Two categories of exporters can actually form part of the ‘all others’ rate i.e. ‘known’ exporters who failed to participate and ‘unknown’ exporters who did not participate in the anti-dumping investigation. As a matter or practice, anti-dumping duty is genera...

By Kapil Sharma and Narendra Kumar Singhvi       There is a paradigm shift in the way services will be taxed from this month (July, 2012) onwards. Under the new regime, all services, which are not included in what is popularly known as ‘negative list of services’, will be taxed. The negative list approach to levy service tax has substantially altered service tax law impacting transactions in...

By Prashant Phillips & Manish Singh        Incredible growth of businesses and advancement in technology in recent times has expanded the horizons of the patent landscape, which now cuts across international boundaries. This growth has transformed a seemingly small focus area related to patents – patent translation - into an area which is now considered as very important by both patent autho...

By Sugandha Kapur     Mergers and amalgamations are an important tool for corporate strategy and structuring. On this subject, the division bench of the Delhi High Court ruled (13 July 2012) inter alia, in the case of Idea Cellular Limited v. Union of India (Company Appeal Nos. 42 & 67 of 2011) that amalgamation of companies and licenses held by the merging companies are entirely independent...