Subscribe to the Bombay Chartered Accountant Journal Subscribe Now!

January 2012

(2011) 131 ITD 84 (Hyd.) Sri Venkateswara Bhakti Channel v. ACIT, Circle-1(1) Dated: 26-11-2010

By C. N. Vaze, Shailesh Kamdar, Jagdish T. Punjabi, Bhadresh Doshi
Chartered Accountants
Reading Time 1 mins
fiogf49gjkf0d
Section 12A — Can a section 25 company be registered u/s.12A of Income-tax Act — Held, Yes.

Facts:

The assessee-company was registered u/s.25 of the Companies Act, 1956 and was engaged in producing religious feature films, serials for a temple. It applied for registration u/s.12A with the Commissioner. The application was rejected on the grounds that the assessee was a private limited company.

Held:
The provisions of section 11 deal with the exemption of the total income of a ‘person’ who derives income from property held under trust for charitable or religious purposes. The plain reading of the definition of person also includes a company. The word institution is also not defined anywhere in section 12AA, but the meaning as given in Oxford Dictionary nowhere suggests that company is not an institution. The company being a person in accordance with the scheme of the Act is entitled to benefit of section 12A.

Thus the test whether an assessee could be registered u/s.12A is not the status of the ‘person’, but on the basis that whether the person (assessee) was established for charitable or religious purpose.

Download PDF

You May Also Like

(2011) 131 ITD 1 (Ahd.) ITO Ward-2(4), Ahmedabad v. Chandrakant R. Patel A.Y.: 2006-07. Dated: 8-4-2011

2011-TIOL-735-ITAT-PUNE Glaxosmithkline Pharmaceuticals Ltd. v. ITO (TDS) A.Ys.: 2006-07 to 2008-09. Dated: 7-10-2011