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TMI BlogIntroduction of concept of mediation and Advance Ruling System for Residents to reduce tax litigation and more clarityX X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... thorities are active contributories to this deluge. To top it, a number of litigations arise inter se the Government and its bodies and, thus, the only question, as stated in the beginning, is which pocket of the Government will be benefitted? 2. The aforesaid position resulted in a judicial innovation with the Supreme Court passing orders in Oil and Natural Gas Commission & Anr. v. Collector of Central Excise [1991 (10) TMI 58 - Supreme Court] requiring that such cases must be referred to a Committee to be appointed by the Government to facilitate a resolution of such disputes and that no case should be filed without the approval of this Committee. This system was a failure as is apparent from the facts of the present case, where the SLP ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... s filed only to invite a dismissal. The object appears to be that a certificate for dismissal is obtained from the highest court so that a quietus could be put to the matter in the Government Departments. Undoubtedly, this is complete wastage of judicial time and in various orders of this Court it has been categorized as "certificate cases", i.e., the purpose of which is only to obtain this certificate of dismissal. 5. The 126th Law Commission of India Report titled 'Government and Public Sector Undertaking Litigation Policy and Strategies' debated the Government versus Government matters which weighed heavily on the time of the Courts as well as the public exchequer. This was as far back as in 1988. It was only in the year 2010 that the N ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... e Administrative Ministries/Departments to which the disputing parties belong and the Secretary, Department of Legal Affairs. In case the two disputing parties belong to the same Ministry/Department, the Committee will comprise Secretary of Administrative Ministry/Department concerned; the Secretary, Department of Legal Affairs and the Secretary, Department of Public Enterprises. If a dispute is between a CPSE and a State Government Department/Organisation, the Committee will comprise of the Secretary of the Ministry Department of the Union to which the CPSE belongs, the Secretary, Department of Legal Affairs and the Chief Secretary of the State concerned. Such disputes are ideally to be resolved at the first level itself within a time sche ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... oncerned, because they are consistently sought to be carved out as a separate category of cases. One of the largest areas of litigation for the Government is taxation matters. The petition rate of the tax department before the Supreme Court is at 87%. - See 'Economic Survey 2017-19 - Volume 1' by the Department of Economic Affairs, Ministry of Finance, Government of India So, the question is can something be done about it? 11. In our opinion, a vibrant system of Advance Ruling can go a long way in reducing taxation litigation. This is not only true of these kinds of disputes but even disputes between the taxation department and private persons, who are more than willing to comply with the law of the land but find some ambiguity. Instead of ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... an advance ruling can be sought from the AAR has gradually increased to now include both residents and non-residents, who can seek the same for issues having a substantial tax impact. Chapter XIX-B of the IT Act deals with advance rulings and it has been defined in Section 245N(a) of the IT Act. These rulings are binding both on the Income Tax Department and the applicant, and while there is no statutory right to appeal, the Supreme Court has held in Columbia Sportswear Company v. Director of Income Tax Bangalore [2012 (8) TMI 105 - Supreme Court] that a challenge an advance ruling first lies before the High Court, and subsequently before the Supreme Court. The advance ruling may be reversed in the event a substantial question of general pu ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... ime to reconsider and reduce the ceiling limit, more so in terms of the recent announcement stated to be in furtherance of a tax friendly face-less regime! 16. We may refer to the international scenario where there has been an incremental shift towards mature tax regimes adopting advance ruling mechanisms. The increase in global trade puts the rulings system at the centre-stage of a robust international tax cooperation regime. The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (for short 'OECD') lists advance rulings as one of the indicators to assess trade facilitation policies, making it an aspirational international best practice standard. For example, Australia and New Zealand have a robust system of advance rulings wherein the ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X
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