Important Amendments by The Finance (No. 2) Act, 2024 – Charitable Trusts

Important Amendments by the Finance (No.2) Act, 2024 are covered in six different Articles. It is not possible to cover all amendments at length and hence the focus is only on important amendments but with a detailed analysis of their impacts. These in-depth analysis will serve as a future guide to know the existing provisions, current amendments and their rationale, and the revised provisions. We hope the readers will enrich by the detailed analysis. – Editor

For the past several years, charitable institutions have awaited the Finance Bill of each year with dread and trepidation, as to what further compliance, burden and complexity would be imposed upon them. Since 2009, many new provisions for charitable institutions have been introduced, making the requirement of claiming exemption increasingly difficult.

Fortunately, some of this year’s amendments have sought to alleviate some of the difficulties being faced by charitable institutions. However, there have been no amendments in respect of many other complex and pressing problems faced by charitable institutions (such as the applicability of the proviso to section 2(15) as to what activity constitutes a business, applicability of tax on accreted income under certain circumstances, the low reporting requirement of a cumulative ₹50,000 for substantial contributors, etc).