Additions for notional interest, ad-hoc expenses, and trade payables are invalid after favorable remand report
Issue
Whether the Assessing Officer can sustainably maintain tax additions for notional interest on subsidiary loans, ad-hoc expense disallowances, and unexplained trade payables when the revenue’s own remand report subsequently accepts the assessee’s explanations without any adverse remarks.
Facts
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The Assessee: A corporate entity engaged in the business of developing and operating Information Technology (IT) Parks.
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Notional Interest Addition: The assessee advanced an interest-free loan to its wholly-owned subsidiary, prompting the Assessing Officer to add national/deemed interest income to its total receipts.
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Ad-hoc Disallowance: The Assessing Officer mechanically disallowed 20% of the genuine business expenses claimed by the assessee under the heads of Power & Fuel, Repairs & Maintenance, and Other Administrative Expenses.
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Unexplained Cash Credit: The Assessing Officer reclassified standard outstanding trade payables as unexplained cash credits under Section 68 and added the entire amount to the assessee’s taxable income, despite the return declaring a loss.
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The Remand Report: During appellate proceedings before the Commissioner (Appeals), a remand report was called from the revenue. The Assessing Officer submitted the report without raising any adverse remarks, effectively accepting the assessee’s detailed explanations on all three issues.
Decision
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Deemed Interest Deleted: The addition for notional interest cannot stand since the revenue’s own remand report accepted the business rationale of the interest-free funding to the subsidiary.
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Ad-hoc Disallowances Reversed: The 20% flat-rate disallowance on administrative, power, and maintenance expenses is deleted because the commercial utility and documentation were accepted in the remand proceedings.
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Trade Payables Addition Quashed: The Section 68 cash credit addition is set aside as the identity, genuineness, and creditworthiness of the trade payables were validated by the revenue’s clean remand report.
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Outcome: The Commissioner (Appeals) was entirely justified in deleting all three additions, and the deletions are upheld in favor of the assessee.
Key Takeaways
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Conclusive Nature of Remand: Once the tax department evaluates evidence in a remand report and drops its objections, it cannot later defend the original, unverified additions.
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No Notional Income Fiction: Income tax is levied on real income; commercial loans to a wholly-owned subsidiary cannot be artificially taxed with “deemed interest” unless specific anti-avoidance provisions apply.
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Arbitrary Disallowances Unsustainable: Percentage-based ad-hoc disallowances of routine operational expenditures (like power, fuel, and repairs) without pinpointing specific non-business leakage are illegal.
and Naveen Chandra, Accountant Member
[Assessment year 2022-23]
| a. | Addition of Rs. 6,16,29,807/- being the deemed interest income on interest free loan of Rs. 51,35,81,730/- given by the assessee to its wholly owned subsidiary. |
| b. | Disallowance of Expenditure of Rs.5,48,84,622/- being 20% of the expenditure claimed by the assessee under the head Power & Fuel (Rs.11,53,79,145/-), Other Admin Expense (Rs. 8,35,96,717/-) & Repair & Maintenance (Rs. 7,54,47,248/-). |
| c. | Addition of Trade Payable of Rs. 4,07,12,410/- under Section 68 as unexplained cash credit. |
| • | The advances are proven by bank records and ledger entries in the books the assessee and of the subsidiary; the payments were used for accepting an asset (plot) and for project development expenses by the subsidiary. |
| • | The subsidiary did not make payments to the assessee in the nature of interest, nor has any interest income been reflected in the assessee’s accounts for the year. |
| • | There is no material to show diversion or misappropriation of funds for personal use or non-business purposes by directors or related parties of the assessee. |
Commercial expediency and nexus: The documents show that the advances were in furtherance of the commercial plan of the assessee group to develop and operate IT Park-related infrastructure and that the subsidiary’s activities were directly related to the assessee’s business objectives. The funds were therefore deployed for the overall business plan of the group and not as passive deposits from which interest income would be expected in isolation. It has been held in a number of judgments that notional interest cannot be charged/ disallowance of interest u/s 36(1)(iii) cannot be made on interest free advances to subsidiaries when the said advances have commercial expediency involved as the same have been utilized for the expansion of the business of the appellant company. The appellant has further submitted that sufficient interest free funds were also available with the assessee company during the various years when the funds were advanced to its subsidiary i.e. SS Techno Park Pvt. Ltd.
The Hon’ble Supreme Court of India in the case of Additional Commissioner of Income-tax v. Tulip Star Hotels Ltd. reported at (SC) has held as under:
In S. A. Builders Ltd. v. CIT (Appeals) , the Supreme Court has held that’. where it is obvious that a holding company has a deep interest in its subsidiary, and hence if the holding company advances borrowed money to a subsidiary and the same is used by the subsidiary for some business purposes, the assessee would .. ordinarily be entitled to deduction of interest on its borrowed loans’
Further, the Hon’ble SUPREME COURT OF INDIA in the case of Hero Cycles (P.) Ltd. v. Commissioner of Income-tax (Central), Ludhiana reported at (SC) has held as under:
Section 36(1)(iii) of the Income-tax Act, 1961 – Interest on borrowed capital (Interest free loans) – Assessment year 1988-89 – Whether once it is established that there is nexus between expenditure and purpose of business (which need not necessarily be business of assessee itself), revenue cannot justifiably claim to put itself in armchair of businessman or in position of Board of Directors and assume role to decide how much is reasonable expenditure having regard to circumstances of case – Held, assessee filed its return claiming deduction of interest paid on borrowed sums from Bank under section 36(1)(iii) – Assessing Officer finding that assessee had used owed funds for giving interest free loans to its subsidiary company and directors, rejected assessee’s claim – High Court upheld order of Assessing Officer – It was noted that advance to subsidiary company became imperative as a business expediency in view of undertaking given to financial institutions by assessee to effect that it would provide additional margin to subsidiary company to meet working capital for meeting any cash losses Insofar as loans to directors were concerned, said loans were granted out of assessee’s own surplus funds -Whether in view of aforesaid, impugned order passed by High Court was to be set aside – Held, yes [In favour of assessee]
Section 36(1)(ii) of the Income-tax Act, 1961 – Interest on borrowed capital (Interest free loan) – Assessment year 1989-90 – Where for welfare and proper functioning of subsidiary companies, assessee in its wisdom decided to advance loan to them at lower rates of interest than that paid by it on borrowed funds, so that subsidiary companies might function properly and assessee being holding company would also be benefited, it could be said that loan advanced to sister companies was for commercial expediency and assessee was entitled to deduction of interest paid under section 36(1)(iii) [In favour of assessee]
“Section 36(1)(iii) of the Income-tax Act, 1961 Interest on borrowed capital – Assessment year 1977-78 Assessing Officer disallowed a part of interest paid by assessee-company on its borrowed funds on ground that it had advanced an interest free loan to its 100 per cent subsidiary company – Whether when clearly loan given by assessee to its subsidiary company was for purpose of business and commercial expediency, disallowance of part of interest by Assessing Officer was justified – Held, no”
Section 36(1)(iii) of the Income-tax Act, 1961 – Interest on borrowed capital (Interest free loans to subsidiary) Assessment year 2016-17 -Whether where assessee company had advanced interest free loan to its subsidiary company for purpose of business, no interest paid on borrowed funds could have been disallowed under section 36(1)(iii) -Held, yes [Para 14] [In favour of assessee]
Interest paid on borrowed funds utilized for investment in group companies strategic business purpose was allowable as deduction under section 36(1)(iii)
Section 36(1)(iii) of the Income-tax Act, 1961 – Interest on borrowed capital (Interest e loans) Assessee borrowed fund and advanced same to its sister concern as interest free loan – Assessing Officer disallowed interest under section 36(1)(i) – It was admittedly not a case where amount was either a donation or loan was given to an individual or to a director of company in his personal capacity – Thus, only possible other purpose, as opposed to a business purpose or commercial expediency, was a ‘personal’ one, and a commercial entity can have no such personal purpose – Whether on facts, Tribunal was justified in allowing interest under section 36(1)(ii) Held, yes [Para 12] [In favour of assessee]”
“Section 36(1)(iii) of the Income-tax Act, 1961 – Interest on borrowed capital (Interest free advances) Assessment year 2012-13 Assessing Officer disallowed a part of interest paid by assessee-company on its borrowed funds on ground that it had advanced an interest free loan to a company wherein assessee had 50 per cent of stake through its 100 per cent subsidiary company – Whether when clearly loan given by assessee was for purpose of assessee’s business and was given according to its corporate strategy, and same was never contested by revenue, impugned disallowance of part of interest by Assessing Officer was unjustified – Held, yes [Paras 20 and 21] [In favour of assessee]”
“Section 254 of the Income-tax Act, 1961 – Appellate Tribunal – Order of – Assessment year 1948-49 – Whether Tribunal should not base its findings on suspicions, conjectures, or surmises nor should it act on evidence at all or on improper rejection of material and relevant evidence or partly on evidence and partly on suspicions, conjectures or surmises and if it does anything of that sort, its findings, even though on questions of fact, will be liable to be set aside by Supreme Court – Held, yes”
“Section 143 of the Income-tax Act, 1961 [Corresponding to section 23(3) of the Indian Income-tax Act, 1922] – Assessment – Additions to income – Assessment year 1944-45 – Whether though ITO is not fettered by technical rules of evidence and pleadings and he is entitled to act on material which may not be accepted as evidence on account of law, but in making assessment under section 23(3) of 1922 Act he is not entitled to make a pure guess and make an assessment without reference to any evidence or any material at all Held, yes Whether where, on request of Tribunal, departmental representative had produced certain material, Tribunal should have given an opportunity to assessee to rebut such material and should have also taken into account material produced by assessee on issue in question – Held, yes.”
Section 37(1) of the Income-tax Act, 1961 Business expenditure Allowability of (Onus to prove) In course of assessment, assessee claimed deduction of expenses towards bricks, machinery repair, cartage, labour expenses etc. Assessing Officer disallowed 10 per cent of said expenses on ground that insufficient evidence was adduced – Tribunal set aside said ad-hoc disallowance on two grounds, firstly, assessee’s books of account were not rejected and secondly, such expenses were allowed consistently in post in scrutiny assessments High Court upheld order passed by Tribunal – Whether SLP filed against view taken by High Court was to be dismissed -Held, yes [Para 2] [In favour of assessee]”
“Where it was not case of revenue that any part of expenditure in question was either bogus or fictitious or same was not incurred by assessee wholly and exclusively for purpose of his business, ad-hoc disallowance of expenditure was not justified”
“Where Assessing Officer made ad-hoc disallowance of 10 per cent of total expenses, as Assessing Officer had not specified specific lacuna related to disallowance of expenditure, disallowance so made was to be deleted”
“Once this is accepted, we are of the opinion that the approach of the ITAT was correct inasmuch as the Assessing Officer did not consider this aspect while making additions of the sundry creditors under section 68 of the income Tax Act As there was no case for disallowance for corresponding purchases, no addition could be made under section 68 inasmuch as is not in dispute that the creditors’ outstanding related to purchases and the trading results were accepted by the Assessing Officer.
| “1. | Whether on the facts and circumstances of the case and in law, the Ld. CIT(A) has erred in deleting the addition of Rs. 6,76,29,807/-made by the Assessing Officer on account of notional interest on interest-free advances to a subsidiary company without properly appreciating that the assessee failed to establish a nexus between borrowed funds and business expediency, and that the advances were made out of mixed funds involving borrowed capital. |
| 2. | Whether on the facts and circumstances of the case and in law, the Ld. CIT(A) has erred in deleting the disallowance of Rs. 5,48,84,6221-made by the Assessing Officer on account of unveriliable and excessive expenses towards power, fuel, administrative, and repair heads, without appreciating that the assessee failed to furnish complete supporting evidences during assessment and that the AO’s disallowance was justified under the circumstances. |
| 3. | Whether on the facts and circumstances of the case and in law, the Ld. CIT(A) has erred in deleting the addition of Rs. 4,07,12,1701-made under section 68 of the Income Tax Act, 1961, without appreciating that the assessee failed to discharge the primary onus of establishing the identity, creditworthiness, and genuineness of the creditors, and that the AO had rightly invoked the provisions of section 68 of the I.T.Act, 1961. |
| 4. | Whether on the facts and circumstances of the case and in law, the Ld. CIT(A) has erred in granting complete relief to the assessee without properly appreciating the findings of the Assessing Officer and the cumulative evidences gathered during assessment, thereby rendering the appellate order perverse and unsustainable. |
| 5. | Whether on the facts and circumstances of the case and in law, the Ld. CIT(A) has erred in admitting and relying upon additional evidence produced by the assessee during appellate proceedings without affording the Assessing Officer an adequate opportunity to examine and rebut the same, in contravention of Rule 46A of the Income Tax Rules, 1962. |
| 6. | That the order of Ld. CIT(A)-3, Noida being erroneous in law and facts be set aside and order of the A.O. be restored. |
| 7. | That the above grounds are without prejudice to each alter and appellant craves leave to add, alter or amend any ground or grounds on or before the date of hearing of appeal. “ |

