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Case law › Circulars › 1969 › Circular No. 23
CBDT circular 23 July 1969

Circular No. 23

[Withdrawn by Circular No. 7/2009, Dated 22-10-2009]

What this is

Circular No. 23 was issued by the Central Board of Direct Taxes on 23 July 1969. Its subject is [Withdrawn by Circular No. 7/2009, Dated 22-10-2009].

This grants an exemption or a relief under a provision that allows one. Read the conditions attached: an exemption notification is construed strictly, and a condition missed is the exemption lost.

What it does

What survives in the text before you is an amendment to Circular No. 23 of 1969 and a note of its fate. Circular No. 163 dated 29 May 1975 added a sentence at the end of the last paragraph of Circular No. 23, to remove a possible misunderstanding of the legal position: the taxability of such portion of the profits will be subject to the exemption provided in clause (b) of the Explanation to section 9(1)(i). The heading carried with the text records that Circular No. 23 of 1969, on income accruing or arising to a non-resident through or from a business connection in India under section 9, was withdrawn by Circular No. 7/2009 dated 22 October 2009.

Why it was issued

The addition was made to remove a possible misunderstanding of the legal position on how much of a non-resident's profits could be taxed.

Who it reaches

The provisions it speaks to

Left, the provision of the Income-tax Act, 1961 as the instrument itself names it. Right, the section of the Income-tax Act, 2025 that the department’s own concordance maps it to — which is where the same ground is now covered.
Under the 1961 ActNow
s.9s.9

The instrument, as the Board published it

The words below are the department’s own, reproduced from its published text. Where the department’s copy carried a publisher’s notes after the instrument, those are not reproduced.

[WITHDRAWN BY CIRCULAR NO. 7/2009, DATED 22-10-2009]
Non-Residents—Income Accruing or Arising through or from Business connection in India—Liability to Tax—Section 9 of the Income-tax Act, 1961
Circular No. 163, dated 29-5-75, CBDT Bulletin XXI/I/2, page 6.

To remove any possible and misunderstanding of the legal position, the Board added the following sentences, at the end of the last para of Board Circular No. 23 of 1969 :-
"The taxability of such portion of the profits will, however, be subject to the exemption provided in clause (b) of the Explanation to Section 9(1)(i)".
[Circular No. 163, dated 29-5-75, CBDT Bulletin XXI/I/2, page 6.]

What to watch

Where you meet it

In an old assessment of a non-resident where attribution of profits to an Indian business connection was worked on the 1969 circular.

What it names

It mentions. Circular No. 23/1969, Circular No. 7/2009

On the same provision

Other instruments in this library that name the same provision of the 1961 Act. They are not necessarily still operative, and a later one may have replaced an earlier one without saying so.

← Circular No. 24  ·  Circular No. 22 →

A circular binds the department, not you and not a court. The Board issues a circular to its own officers. An assessee may hold the department to a circular that helps him; the department cannot hold an assessee to one that hurts him, and the Tribunal and the courts decide the law for themselves.

Source: the Income Tax Department’s own published text — its page for this instrument.