S3-newsletter dated January 28, 2020

  1. MADRAS HIGH COURT HOLDS THAT NO SERVICE TAX IS LEVIABLE ON NOTICE PAY

In a land-mark judgment, the Hon’ble High Court of Madras has held that, no service tax is leviable on the notice pay recovered by the employer from the employee, holding further that, the employer cannot be treated as rendering a service to the employee, in respect of notice pay recovery. A copy of this judgment is attached.

Our views :

In our view, this judgment will also have applicability under the GST law and a view can indeed be taken that, the employer cannot be treated as a ‘supplier’ within the meaning of Section 7(1) of the CGST Act, 2017.

This issue has seen a lot of litigation under the service tax regime. Even under the GST regime, this issue is promising to be an issue which will involve litigation. Assessees would be well advised to use this judgment to handle this issue………..

A new Section 279SU has been inserted with effect from November 1, 2019 by the Finance (No.2) Act, 2019. This Section is reproduced below :

“269SU : Acceptance of payment through prescribed electronic modes.—Every person, carrying on business, shall provide facility for accepting payment through prescribed electronic modes, in addition to the facility for other electronic modes, of payment, if any, being provided by such person, if his total sales, turnover or gross receipts, as the case may be, in business exceeds fifty crore rupees during the immediately preceding previous year.”.

The Central Board of Direct Taxes has also issued the following Circular dated 30-12-2019, in terms of which, every person having a business turnover of more than Rs

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