The concept of draft assessment order and final assessment order is an interesting concept to study under the Transfer Pricing (for brevity ‘TP’) Regulations. Under the old provisions of the Income Tax Act, 1961 (for brevity ‘ITA’), the concept of passing of draft assessment order was limited to transfer pricing matters and adjustment made in respect of a non-residents. Section 144C of ITA mandates the assessing officer to pass a draft of the assessment order in respect of an eligible assessee before passing the final assessment order. The objective of insertion of Section 14CC is to speedy redressal of the issue by a three-member forum called ‘dispute resolution panel’ (for brevity ‘DRP’) instead of single member forum of Commissioner of Income Tax (Appeals). Even though Section 144C was effective from October 01, 2009, the concept of draft assessment order is still a contentious issue at appellate fora.

While the issue surrounding the concept of draft assessment order under Section 144C is settling down, a new concept of draft ‘assessment order’, ‘final draft assessment order’ or ‘revised draft assessment order’ under Section 144B has come up with litigation at the judicial fora. In this article, the concept of draft assessment order under 144C and 144B has been dealt with in detail.

Read more: Various hues of Draft Assessment Orders – Section 144B and Section 144C

One of the main reasons that goods and services tax (for brevity ‘GST’) laws were introduced is to bring numerous indirect legislations under one single law to the extent possible. By doing this, the service tax law, excise law and value added tax law have repealed and subsumed into GST laws. Everyone was happy, because there is no requirement to understand, what is manufacture, what is goods, what is service, what is negative list, what is positive list and so on. Simply, the GST law promised, if there is a supply, there is a tax. However, that was so in the dream land and not in reality. We continue to face issues in different shapes and that was the only change, one can perceive.

In this article, we tried to write on the issues surrounding the job work. Before deliberating on the issues, we will take a look on the concept of job work under the GST laws. The expression ‘job work’ is laid down under Section 2(68) of CT Act[1] to mean any treatment or process undertaken by a person on goods belonging to another registered person and the expression ‘job worker’ shall be construed accordingly. Section 143 details the procedures pertaining to the job work, which we will deal at appropriate place. With the above in mind, let us now proceed to examine certain issues pertaining to job work.

Read more: Job Work - Certain Issues

In this edition, we bring you, an article on various shades of draft assessment orders and issue surrounding them. This is a two part series article. The next part would be in the upcoming editions.

The next article is on certain issues surrounding the job work vis-à-vis manufacture.

I hope that you will have good time reading this edition and please do share your feedback. I will also urge clients to mail us topics or issues on which you want us to deliberate in our future editions, so that we can contribute to the same.

Read more: SBS Wiki E Journal September 2021

Claiming of a deduction in respect of expenditure which are covered under Section 43B is always a discussion point at various appellate fora. Section 43B was introduced into the Income Tax Act, 1961 (for brevity ‘ITA’) through the Finance Act, 1983, making it effective from April 01, 1984. The primary objective of Section 43B is to compel the assessee to discharge certain liabilities by actually making the payment in order to claim such expenditure. Earlier to this, the assessee was creating a provision and claiming the said expenditure as deduction while computing business profits, without actually paying them. The Government after observing this, has introduced the said section to allow the said expenses as deduction only if the same are being paid.

The payments covered under Section 43B inter-alia includes ‘interest payable on any loan or borrowing from public financial institution in accordance with the terms and conditions of the agreement governing such loan’. This clause (d) has been inserted in Section 43B through the Finance Act, 1988 with effective from 01^st April 1989.

Read more: Issue of Debentures vis - a-vis Actually Paid - Section 43B - Supreme Court Decision in MM Aqua...