New Delhi: The government is expected to bring in biometric PAN cards shortly to tackle the problem of increasing misuse of Permanent Account Number (PAN) cards.

Finance Minister, P Chidambaram said in Lok Sabha that a combined Working Group in the Finance Ministry has given its statement after getting technical and commercial propositions from top biometric solution providers.

Authority for Advance Rulings has decided that the income-tax department cannot apply transfer pricing provisions, if a foreign company does not have a liability to pay tax. This ruling would give relief to the Netherlands-based Vanenburg Group BV which had shifted the entire shareholding of its Indian subsidiary Cordys R&D (India) Pvt Ltd to its Cordys Holdings BV (Netherlands).
Vanenburg Group had asked a judgment from the AAR on whether the relocation would draw capital gains tax and the transfer pricing provisions under Sections 92-92F of the Income-Tax Act, 1961.

The Constitution and List I in the seventh schedule says that tax on income is imposed by the Union government. The Constitution concedes exempt to state governments from charging income tax, also, state’s property and income is exempted from union taxation.

The exemption provided is for government as well as non-government activities of a state. But, state-owned companies or corporations claimed that their trade or business is carried on behalf of the state government and in reality, it is the state government which carries on business through them. The surplus generated by such activities belongs to the state government. Hence, they are entitled to be treated as state.

The Income-Tax Appellate Tribunal (ITAT) has directed the IT department to refund the amount it has recovered from Mumbai-based brewing company, Skol Breweries.
Rs 2.68 crore was recovered from Skol while an interim stay order passed by ITAT was in operation. ITAT, the quasi-judicial body for settling tax disputes, determined that IT department’s action was beyond its jurisdiction. The extraordinary order was approved by vice-president of ITAT, G E Veerabhadrappa, and its judicial member, Madhavi Devi.
As per case facts, on March 27, 2007, Skol Brewery requested the Tribunal, by moving an emergency stay petition, to intervene as the department had attached all its bank accounts after the I-T Commissioner rejected its stay petition.

The Finance Bill, 2007, says that by opting right time to make long-term capital gains, it is possible to make differences in terms of taxation under the Income-tax Act, 1961. Investors having long-term capital gains can receive gains after October 1 in a financial year.
Suppose, you sell a your residential house for Rs 2 crore and the indexation cost is Rs 40 lakh, say, so you can make a long-term capital gain of Rs 1.60 crore. Now, if you do not want to buy another residential house and want to save income tax as well, then you have the option to invest your capital gain in the capital gains bonds for a minimum period of three years as provided for in section 54EC of the Act.