Taxation & Customs
A pervasive misconception among Non-Resident Indians (NRIs) is that transactions conducted through foreign bank accounts exist completely beyond the reach of Indian revenue authorities. While Section 5(2) of the Income-tax Act, 1961, strictly confines the scope of total income for a non-resident to income received, accruing, or arising within India, offshore financial activities are no longer insulated from domestic scrutiny.
Taxation & Customs
On August 25, 2026, a Supreme Court bench of Justices J.B. Pardiwala and K. Vinod Chandran quashed a GST show-cause notice and demand order against Tata Steel worth roughly Rs. 1,781 crore in tax and penalty. The ruling, in M/s Tata Steel Limited v. Union of India (2026 INSC 920; 2026 LiveLaw (SC) 862), holds that tax authorities cannot invoke the extended five-year limitation period under Section 74 of the CGST Act merely by reciting words like "fraud" or "suppression" — the notice must set out specific, foundational facts. For any GST-registered business that has faced, or could face, an extended-limitation notice, this is a ruling worth understanding closely.
Taxation & Customs
In the digital economy, the government faces a massive challenge: tracking millions of unorganized, small-scale vendors selling goods and services online. To prevent systemic tax leakage, the Ministry of Finance executed a brilliant, yet highly burdensome, regulatory maneuver. They turned the tech platforms—e-commerce giants, service aggregators, and SaaS marketplaces—into the state's largest, invisible tax collection agents.
Taxation & Customs
Set to come into force on April 1, 2026, the newly enacted Income Tax Act of 2025 completely supersedes the legacy 1961 framework. While the old law struggled to keep pace with modern financial instruments, the new legislation aggressively brings tax enforcement into the digital age.