All published analysis
31 pieces.
19 October 2026
Affordable housing projects: section 80-IBA, the minimum tax, and the 2025 Act
Section 80-IBA gives a developer a hundred per cent deduction on the profits of an affordable housing project, and section 115JB then charges the same profits to minimum alternate tax because a Chapter VI-A deduction is not one of the items that reduces book profit. This article works through every condition in section 80-IBA, the section 80-IB(10) jurisprudence that the Revenue and the assessee will both reach for, the disputes that are split between High Courts and the ones no court has decided at all, the minimum tax and alternate minimum tax arithmetic for a company and for a limited liability partnership, the stamp duty value and unsold stock provisions that sit alongside the deduction, and the way the Income-tax Act 2025 froze the deduction and, on the face of its own text, removed the credit that made the minimum tax bearable for a company.
19 October 2026
Pecuniary jurisdiction: the section 143(2) notice from the wrong rank
An ITAT Mumbai Bench has quashed a scrutiny assessment because the notice under section 143(2) was issued by an Assistant Commissioner where the returned income was Nil, and CBDT Instruction No. 1/2011 placed a corporate case of that size with the Income Tax Officer. This article sets out the statutory chain the point actually rests on, the High Court authority running the other way, the difference between a senior officer taking a small case and a junior officer taking a large one, the further jurisdictional question on the same record that neither side argued, what a win of this kind is actually worth, and what a practitioner should do with all of it on a live file.
18 October 2026
GAAR Part 3: judicial doctrine, Circular 7 of 2017 and defending a reference
The third of three Parts on the General Anti-Avoidance Rule, and the one a practitioner uses. Chapter X-A did not displace the judicial anti-avoidance doctrine, and whether a judge-made rule can be used to do what Parliament has set conditions for doing is the second large open question in this field. Walfort is cited on both sides and contains no sentence about bonus stripping at all. The Board's sixteen clarifications of 27 January 2017 will be produced across the table and the first of them goes against the taxpayer. Before any of that, a chartered accountant has usually already answered the GAAR question in Form 3CD clause 30C, in a document signed and filed before any notice issued, and the deferral of that clause appears to have ended on 31 March 2022. This Part sets out the doctrine, the circular, the Department's case at its highest, the clause 30C exposure, how a reference is answered, how a transaction is built so that the question does not arise, and the full concordance with the Income-tax Act, 2025.
18 October 2026
GAAR Part 1: what makes an arrangement impermissible under section 96
The first of three Parts on the General Anti-Avoidance Rule, and the one that decides most files. Before Chapter X-A applies at all the arrangement has to clear the two gates in Rule 10U, a tax benefit of more than three crore rupees in aggregate to all the parties in the year and the grandfathering of income arising from the transfer of investments made before 1 April 2017. Then section 96(1) requires two things together, a main purpose of obtaining a tax benefit and at least one of the four descriptions in clauses (a) to (d), which are alternatives to each other rather than a further list of cumulative conditions. This Part sets out both gates, both conditions, the four clauses including the commercial substance deeming provisions in section 97, the definitions in section 102 that decide who is inside an arrangement and whose tax benefit is counted, the presumption in section 96(2), and the arithmetic by which bonus stripping actually produces a loss. The counterpart provision in the Income-tax Act, 2025 is given in brackets throughout.
18 October 2026
GAAR Part 2: consequences, the section 144BA machinery and the remedy
The second of three Parts on the General Anti-Avoidance Rule, and the one that matters once a reference has been made. It opens with section 99, which belongs to the test rather than to its consequences: it lets the Revenue collapse connected persons, disregard an accommodating party and look through a structure for the purpose of deciding whether a tax benefit exists at all, which is how a benefit is found in a taxpayer who has none and how the three crore threshold in Rule 10U is reached. Section 98 then permits a recharacterisation wide enough to disregard an entity. Whether section 100 lets the Revenue reach conduct Parliament chose to address by a specific rule, the section 94(8) problem, is the central unresolved question in this field. The section 144BA machinery has three stages and the taxpayer's leverage sits in the second, because the reference to the Approving Panel arises only where the assessee has objected. No appeal lies against the Panel's directions. This Part also sets out what the three Telangana High Court decisions actually decide and what is pending in the Supreme Court.
18 October 2026
PAN misuse: when a portal entry becomes a Rs 3.91 crore demand
A contractual security guard and cook was reassessed on an alleged turnover of Rs 49.48 crore because his permanent account number appeared in a packaging company's records. The information came off the portal, the officer made no inquiry of his own, the material behind the information was never supplied, and the same transaction was counted twice. The Delhi High Court quashed the order. This article sets out what the information actually was, why the officer's own statute required more of him, how the arithmetic fell apart, what the judgment does not decide, and what to do when a demand of this kind lands on a file.
14 October 2026
Section 264 revision: the fresh claim bar, and what survives
Section 264 was for forty years the taxpayer's safety valve for a claim left out of the return. The Supreme Court has now held that a claim requiring a revised return cannot be routed through revision. This article sets out the holding, the tension inside it that is not yet resolved, the Department's case, what relief survives, how to file, and the alternatives that matter more than they did.
10 October 2026
Section 92CA: what a reference to the TPO cannot decide
A reference under section 92CA is transaction-specific. It does not hand the Transfer Pricing Officer the power to decide whether a permanent establishment exists, whether a treaty applies, or what the assessee's taxable income is. This article sets out where the line falls, how the Gujarat position shifted, and what the Finance Act 2026 has taken away from the limitation argument.
09 October 2026
Section 270AA after the Finance Act 2026: waiver in misreporting cases
For nine years section 270AA offered immunity from penalty to everyone except the one class of assessee who needed it most. The Finance Act, 2026 removed that exclusion with effect from 1 March 2026 and put a price on it instead. The Bombay High Court has now applied the new provision, held that the grant is mandatory, and held that an assessee rejected under the old law may apply again. This sets out the rewritten section, who it reaches and who it does not, what it costs, how to complete the revised Form No. 68 the portal now serves, the questions it leaves unanswered, how far back it goes, and why the Income-tax Act, 2025 does something materially different. The bare text of both sections is annexed.
07 October 2026
Section 142A DVO reference: extending limitation under section 153
A reference to the Departmental Valuation Officer stops the limitation clock and, through the sixty-day floor, can hand the Assessing Officer more time than the reference itself consumes. The Gujarat High Court has quashed one made a day before the assessment went time-barred. This sets out the power, the clock, the controls on both, and what the Income-tax Act, 2025 does with all of it.
03 October 2026
Is crypto abroad a foreign asset? Black Money Act and the 2026 window
The 2026 foreign asset disclosure scheme closes on 31 December. Nothing in it mentions crypto, and whether a crypto holding is an asset located outside India is undecided.
27 September 2026
Assessment on a company that no longer exists: nullity or curable defect?
Spice to Maruti Suzuki to Mahagun Realtors, what section 170(2A) changed and what it did not, and why the answer almost always turns on whether the officer was told.
27 September 2026
Black Money Act: who it reaches, which year it charges, what it costs
Who is an assessee, which year an undisclosed foreign asset is charged in, what the penalties and prosecution cost, and the disclosure window closing 31 December 2026.
27 September 2026
Penny stock addition under section 68: no role in the price rigging
When the addition on exempt long-term capital gain is deleted because nothing links the assessee to the manipulation: the contentions, the courts, and the section 69C rider.
27 September 2026
Section 153C: satisfaction note, block period and the 2021 sunset
How a third party's search becomes your assessment: the satisfaction note, the date the six years run from, the incriminating material test, and the section 153D approval.
27 September 2026
Tax demand after a resolution plan: section 156A and the clean slate
What section 156A does and does not do once the NCLT approves a resolution plan, why the extinguishment comes from the Code and not from the Income-tax Act, and where the law is still open.
27 September 2026
Modified return under section 170A: giving effect to a scheme, and no more
The six-month window, the two versions of the section, and the Bombay High Court line holding that a modified return is not an invitation to scrutinise the year again.
25 September 2026
TDS on property bought from an NRI: TAN no longer required
TAN is no longer required when a resident buys property from an NRI: a PAN-based Form No. 141 Schedule E replaces TAN and Form No. 144 from 1 October 2026.
23 September 2026
Conversion of a firm, company or LLP: the conditions that get breached
Firm to company, company to LLP, firm to LLP and LLP to company: which route carries an exemption, what its conditions are, and what the charge looks like when one of them fails.
23 September 2026
Firm and LLP reconstitution: section 9B, section 45(4) and the disputes
How a partner joining, leaving, diluting or selling a stake is taxed: the two separate charges, what the capital account must exclude, and where the law is still open.
22 September 2026
Slump sale taxation: section 50B, section 77 and the disputed issues
How a slump sale is taxed under section 50B and section 77: what an undertaking is, why net worth is not what a business is worth, and what breaks deals.
21 September 2026
Section 32: does slump-sale goodwill depreciation survive 2021?
Depreciation on goodwill from a slump sale after the Finance Act 2021 bar: ITAT Mumbai allows it in Hi-Tech Radiators v DCIT.
19 September 2026
Section 149: is the fifty lakh seen at reopening or at the appeal stage?
Assessed escapement ran to crores. The addition that finally stood was a few lakh. ITAT quashed the reopening, measuring the fifty lakh on what survived.
16 September 2026
On-money additions: what a seized cash book can and cannot prove
A seized cash book multiplied by 100, six years reopened on a search, and a Tribunal that quashed every year and then decided the merits anyway.
16 September 2026
Section 153C time limit when the Assessing Officer is the same person
Does the clock under the third proviso to section 153B(1) run from the section 127 order or from the satisfaction note? ITAT Delhi answers it.
12 September 2026
Family arrangement: not a transfer, until it is
When a family settlement is treated as no transfer at all, when it is recharacterised as a sale, and what follows under sections 67 and 92.
12 September 2026
Will, private family trust, LLP or HUF partition: the tax overlay
What each of the four succession vehicles actually costs in tax, what none of them costs, and the two limits that decide between them in practice.
10 September 2026
After an income tax search: from the panchnama to the block notice
What happens after an income tax search under the Income-tax Act, 2025: the last panchnama, the clocks under ss.247–251, the block period, the s.294 notice, Form ITR-BN, 60% tax and 50% penalty.
09 September 2026
Section 270A penalty: must the notice specify the limb?
Section 270A penalty notice: a penalty cannot be sustained unless the notice states whether the charge is under-reporting or misreporting.
07 September 2026
On-money addition without cross-examination: is it valid?
On-money addition u/s 69: ITAT Mumbai holds a search-based addition on a buyer cannot stand without cross-examining the witness relied on.
17 August 2026
Which Act governs an appeal filed today?
The Income-tax Act, 2025 has been in force since 1 April 2026. A good deal of commentary says appeals filed after that date run on the new Act. Section 536(2)(c) says otherwise.
Analysis published here is general commentary on the law and is not advice on any matter. Positions stated reflect the law as at the date of writing.