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5531 Points
Joined December 2013
@ ish kumar sharma: As per section-36(1)(vii) & 36(2) of The Income Tax Act, 1961, amount of any debt or part is allowed as deduction subject to the following conditions (which are not the exact extract of the said section but only an interpretation of law contained in that section):
- There must be a proper admitted “Debt”
- “Debt” must be incidental to the business or profession of the assessee
- “Debt” must have been taken into account in computing assessable income of the assessee of that previous year or of an earlier previous year or represents money lent in the ordinary course of the business of banking or money-lending which is carried on by the assessee
- “Debt” must have been written-off in the books of account of the assessee in the previous year in which it is to be claimed
As per section-37(1) of The Income Tax Act, 1961, in order to claim deduction, the following conditions should be satisfied (which are not the exact extract of the said section but only an interpretation of law contained in that section):
- The expenditure should not be of the nature described under section-30 to 36
- It should not be in the nature of capital expenditure
- It should not be personal expenditure of the assessee
- It should have been incurred in the previous year
- It should be in respect of business or profession carried on by the assessee
- It should have been expended wholly & exclusively for the purpose of such business
- It should not have been incurred for any purpose which is an offence or is prohibited by any law
Now, there can be two possible situations with corresponding solutions as follows:
- If your company didn’t provide the services at all, as of result of which you have cancelled the invoice (which was issued before providing the services)
The adjustment should have been done in the same Financial Year, i.e., 2014-15 by passing a reverse entry. But your company should have bear the service tax liability initially as per the Point of Taxation Rules, 2011, which will be the “date of issue of invoice” or “date of payment”, whichever is earlier & in your case POT will be date of issue of invoice. Though later, you can make self-adjustment of service tax if fulfilled the conditions as per Rule 6(3) of The Service Tax Rules, 1994. Now, to correct the error in the next Financial Year, i.e., 2015-16, neither you can claim it as “bad debt” as it was never a proper admitted “Debt” at all in the previous Financial Year 2014-15 as per the requirement (1), stated above, of Section-36(1)(vii) & 36(2) nor you claim it as “prior period expenditure” as per AS-5, as then it will be disallowed on account of non-fulfillment of condition (4), as stated above, of Section-37(1) of the IT Act, 1961. You can refer to ITA No.5708/Mum/2009 – Assessment Year-2004-05 in the case of M/s. Tipco Industries Ltd. Vs. The ACIT. Hence, it is advisable to revise your ITR, provided you have filed it within due date as specified u/s-139(1) of The Income Tax Act, 1961 in the Assessment Year 2015-16.
B. If your company had already provided the services, but couldn’t be able to recover the due amount, as a result of which you have cancelled the invoice (which was issued after providing the services)
In this situation, you can easily claim “bad debts” as all the conditions of section-36(1)(vii) & 36(2) gets fulfilled, as already suggested by all. And as far as service tax is concerned, your company should have followed the Point of Taxation Rules, 2011 for paying service tax accordingly.
Hope your doubt is cleared now…