Is this a loophole in the IT Act????

Devendra (Article) (72 Points)

28 November 2009  

Just need to confirm if this is a loophole in the IT Act. Asked my boss but he had no idea of what i was saying.

1. When rent free accomidation is given to an employee it is taxed as a perquisite and TDS deducted thereon. This perquisite is valued on the basis of Rent paid for that accomidation or 15% of Salary( whichever is lower) when the house is not owned by the employer.

So i was auditing this sort of dummy company which dosent do much and the only income is dividend. There i noticed that the company was paying Rent of Rs 300000 per month  for a house in which one of the directors was staying, but the company didnt give any salary to the director and so it wasnt taxable as a perquisite in the hands of the director.Is this some sort of loophole???

2. I also wanted to ask whether it is fair that agricultural income is exempt, or is it a haven for politicians like sharad pawar who ownes acres of agricultural land in Maharashtra and Gujrat and anyway which farmer earns more than 160000 per year???.Also i read somewhere it is an easy way to convert black money into white by showing it as agricultural income and also is it fair for huge profit making companies like Tata Tea, Balrampur Chini who own agricultural land to pay tax on only 40% or whatever of their business profits