The Supreme Court of India held that SLP granted against High Court's ruling that where assessee, a charitable trust, incurred expenditure in excess of income in previous year relevant to assessment year for charitable purposes, out of accumulated charity fund, it could not be denied benefit of exemption under section 11(1)(a).

Commissioner of Income-tax, Bikaner v. Krishi Upaj Mandi Samiti (Grain)* [2017] 78 taxmann.com 164 (SC)

Those who undertake Benami transactions would invite Rigorous Imprisonment (RI) of up to 7

years and such violators would also stand to be charged under the normal I-T Act. Benami Property Transactions Act, 1988, has came into effect from November 1, 2016. Show cause notices for attachment have been issued in 140 cases where benami assets worth Rs 200 crore are involved. The attached assets, include deposits in bank accounts, agricultural and other land, flats and jewellery shares issued to entry operators, among others.

The High Court of Bombay held that where assessee-company made capital contribution in a partnership firm in form of land, shares and securities, since said firm was genuine which carried on its business activities regularly, even though in such a case, aforesaid contribution constituted transfer of capital asset, yet it did not result in any capital gain subjected to capital gain tax.

Jamnalal Sons Ltd. v. Commissioner of Income-tax, Nagpur* [2017] 77 taxmann.com 350 (Bombay)

The ITAT held that where under an agreement with foreign company for carrying out research, assessee made payment to foreign company for purchase of equipments and appliances but no research activity had taken place, said payment could not be treated as royalty liable to TDS.

Aatash Power (P.) Ltd. v. Income Tax Officer, International Taxation-II, Ahmedabad* [2017] 78 taxmann.com 202 (Ahmedabad - Trib.)

The High Court of Punjab and Haryana held that Contracts entered into by assessee-company with various contractors to execute work of erection, testing, commissioning and trial operation of power cycle piping, boiler and LP piping packages for various units in State, amounted to works contract requiring deduction of tax at source under section 194C.

Tightening reporting norms, the tax officers have been asked to submit self appraisal reports to the Revenue Department and explain reasons for the "poor performance" in doing e-scrutiny of tax returns. 

As it promotes paperless e-mail based assessment to limit personal interface between the taxpayer and taxmen, the Revenue Department has asked officers to file a report on the e-assessments they took up and disposed off in the year. In the self appraisal form, they have also been asked to file reasons for "low performance", according to a CBDT order.` The Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) has started paperless assessment proceedings in 7 metro cities of Delhi, Mumbai, Ahmedabad, Bengaluru, Chennai, Hyderabad and Kolkata.