AMIT BAJAJ ADVOCATE

Where assessee having executed an agreement to sell in respect of a house property, purchased a new residential property within one year from date of agreement to sell, in view of fact that subsequently sale deed could not be executed within prescribed time for reason that assessee had been prevented from dealing with said residential house by an order of a competent court, a valid 'transfer' took place within meaning of section 2(47) by executing agreement to sell and, consequently, relief under section 54 was to be granted to assessee in respect of purchase of new residential property.

1. Unlisted securities and units of MF transferred between 1-4-2014 and 10-7-2014 shall be deemed to be long-term capital assets, if held for more than 12 months:

It is proposed that unlisted shares and units of a mutual fund (other than Equity oriented mutual fund) shall be categorized as long-term capital assets only if they are held for more than 36 months. The existing provision requires holding them for a period of more than 12 months so as to categorize them as long-term capital assets.

IT: In order to protect interest earnings from fixed deposits and to meet her financial needs, when an assessee raises a loan against the fixed deposits, so as to keep the source of earning intact, the expenditure so incurred in wholly and exclusively to earn fixed deposit interest income has to be allowed as deduction

IT: Once the assessee claims that the actual market value of the land or building is less than stamp duty valuation adopted by the authorities, it is incumbent upon the Assessing Officer to refer the valuation of said land of building to the Departmental Valuation Officer

It has been proposed to insert a new clause in section 56(2) to provide that any advance received on transfer of capital assets shall be chargeable to tax under head 'income from other sources', if such sum is forfeited and the negotiations do not result in transfer of capital assets. A consequential amendment is also proposed to section 2(24) to include such income in the definition of the term 'income'.

CIRCULAR NO. 9/2014 [F.NO.225/182/2013/ITA.II], DATED 23-4-2014

It has come to the notice of the Board that disputes have arisen as to whether the expenditure incurred on development and construction of infrastructural facilities like roads/highways on Build-Operate-Transfer ('BOT') basis with right to collect toll is entitled for depreciation under section 32(1)(ii) of the Act or the same can be amortized by treating it as an allowable business expenditure under the relevant provisions of the Income-tax Act, 1961 ('Act').