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Case lawCBDT Circulars & Instructions › Statutory position — section 80LA: a unit in an IFSC gets one hundred per cent for ten consecutive years out of fifteen, at its option
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Statutory position — section 80LA: a unit in an IFSC gets one hundred per cent for ten consecutive years out of fifteen, at its option

My client has set up a unit in GIFT City. What exactly is the section 80LA deduction, how long does it last, and what has to go with the return?

My client has set up a unit in GIFT City. What exactly is the section 80LA deduction, how long does it last, and what has to go with the return?

Section 80LA(1A) allows a Unit of an International Financial Services Centre a deduction of one hundred per cent of the income referred to in section 80LA(2), for any ten consecutive assessment years, at the option of the assessee, out of fifteen years beginning with the assessment year relevant to the previous year in which the permission or registration was obtained. The permission or registration counted for that starting point is one under clause (a) of section 23(1) of the Banking Regulation Act 1949, or under the Securities and Exchange Board of India Act 1992, or under the International Financial Services Centres Authority Act 2019.

Decided by the CBDT Circulars & Instructions (Not applicable — statutory text) on 2025-04-01, reported as Income-tax Act 1961, s.80LA(1), (1A), (2), (3) and the Explanation, as printed on the Income-tax Department's section page carrying the year stamp 2025; Income-tax Rules 1962, rule 19AE. It bears on section 80LA, section 80LA(1), section 80LA(1A), section 80LA(2), section 80LA(3), section 80AC, section 288, section 10(4F), section Rule 19AE of the Income Tax Act 1961, in Deductions & Disallowances and How Tax Law Is Read matters.

Still good law. Sub-section (1A) and the whole of sub-section (2) were read a second time on the Department's archived page carrying the year stamp 2024 (No. 1) and came back in identical words save that clause (2)(d) there carries the date 31 March 2025 in place of 31 March 2030 — which corroborates both the text of sub-section (1A) and the fact and direction of the 2025 amendment recorded in the Department's footnote 99. The page relied on for the current text carries the year stamp 2025, the highest located; pages -21 and -23 carry the stamps 2024 (No. 2) and 2018. No judicial decision construing section 80LA(1A) itself — the ten-out-of-fifteen-year computation — was located. There is, however, authority on section 80LA(3) and Form 10CCF, which an earlier pass missed: Volark Leasing IFSC Pvt. Ltd. v. ACIT/DCIT, Circle, Gandhinagar, ITAT Ahmedabad "C" Bench, I.T.A. No. 357/Ahd/2025, AY 2023-24, order dated 29 October 2025 (indiankanoon.org/doc/67261817), which allowed the deduction notwithstanding late filing of the form; and MUFG Bank Ltd. v. ACIT, Delhi High Court, W.P.(C) 2570/2026, orders of 24 February 2026 and 10 March 2026 (indiankanoon.org/doc/114640655 and /doc/143799010), an interim stay of recovery on the same point. The productive search term is the FORM NUMBER, "10CCF"; searches on the section number return only orders quoting the section 80AC list. Sub-section (1A) was separately confirmed word-for-word against the indiankanoon bare-Act text of section 80LA (doc 29520403), and the substitution of "2030" for "2025" in sub-section (2)(d) was confirmed against clause 19 of the Finance Bill 2025. I did not check for any writ challenge to the provision.

Why it matters

Three points decide most files. First, the fifteen-year window starts running from the year the permission or registration was obtained, whether or not the unit is profitable, so a unit that takes four years to reach profit has already burned four of its fifteen; the ten years the assessee chooses must be CONSECUTIVE, so the option is really a choice of starting year, not a right to cherry-pick profitable years. Second, section 80LA(1A) is a different provision from section 80LA(1), which deals with an Offshore Banking Unit in a Special Economic Zone on a five-plus-five basis — one hundred per cent for five consecutive assessment years and then fifty per cent for five more, with a proviso raising the second five to one hundred per cent for assessment years commencing on or after 1 April 2023. Reading the wrong sub-section produces the wrong number of years and the wrong rate. Third, section 80LA(3) is expressed as a condition of allowance: no deduction is allowed unless the assessee furnishes ALONG WITH THE RETURN both an accountant's report certifying the deduction has been correctly claimed and a copy of the permission or registration, and rule 19AE prescribes that report in Form No. 10CCF. But the courts have begun to read that requirement as directory rather than mandatory. In Volark Leasing IFSC Pvt. Ltd. v. ACIT (ITAT Ahmedabad "C" Bench, I.T.A. No. 357/Ahd/2025, AY 2023-24, order dated 29 October 2025) the Tribunal held that denial of the section 80LA deduction "merely on account of delayed filing of the prescribed Form 10CCF which otherwise was filed before the intimation was made on the assessee by CPC under Section 143(1) of the Act was not as per law", and directed the Assessing Officer to grant the deduction; it applied the line of authority on section 80-IA(7) and similar audit-report requirements, including CIT v. Contimeters Electricals (P.) Ltd. (Delhi HC), CIT v. G.M. Knitting Industries (SC) and Bajaj Tempo Ltd. v. CIT (SC). The same point is before the Delhi High Court in MUFG Bank Ltd. v. ACIT (W.P.(C) 2570/2026), where a demand of about Rs.322 crores raised under section 143(1)(a) on the footing that Form 10CCF was not filed by the day the return was filed has been stayed as to recovery by an interim order dated 10 March 2026, the matter being listed for 12 May 2026. File the form with the return; but a late form is not necessarily fatal, and a demand raised on that ground alone is worth contesting. Note also the income side: section 80LA(2)(c) reaches the income of a Unit of the IFSC 'from its business for which it has been approved for setting up in such a Centre in a Special Economic Zone', so income from an activity outside the approved business is outside the deduction; and section 80LA(2)(d) adds income arising from the transfer of an aircraft or a ship which was leased by such a unit, subject to the unit having commenced operation on or before 31 March 2030.

Binding on the department, not on the assessee or the courts. An assessee may rely on a circular that is beneficial to them.

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