Circular No. 706

What it does

Clarifies that the deduction under section 80Q, twenty per cent of profits from a business in India of printing and publication of books or of publication of books, is available for five years commencing with assessment year 1992-93, provided the other conditions in the section are met. The Board rests this on the Explanatory Notes to the Finance (No. 2) Act, 1991, which described the new section as reviving the concession for five years from assessment year 1992-93, matching the section's own words covering the year beginning 1 April 1992 and any one of the four years next following.

Why it was issued

Publishers' and booksellers' associations and federations had asked how many years the deduction under section 80Q would run for.

Who it reaches

Publishers of books claiming deduction under section 80Q
Printer-publishers whose profits come from printing and publication together
Assessing Officers computing the deduction for the early 1990s years

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 Act	Now
s.80Q	no counterpart recorded

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.

SECTION 80Q l PROFITS AND GAINS FROM BUSINESS OF PUBLICATION OF BOOKS
608. Whether deduction under section 80Q is to be allowed for five years commencing from assessment year 1992-93 provided the other conditions mentioned in section 80Q are satisfied
Section 80Q inserted by the Finance (No. 2) Act, 1991, with effect from 1-4-1992 provides that where in the case of an assessee the gross total income of the previous year relevant to the assessment year commencing on the 1st day of April, 1992 or to any one of the four assessment years next following that assessment year, includes any profits and gains derived from a business carried on in India of printing and publication of books or publication of books, a deduction from such profits and gains of an amount equal to 20 per cent thereof shall be allowed.
(2) The Board has received representations from various publishers and book-sellers’ associations/federations seeking clarifications as to the number of years the deduction under section 80Q would be available.
(3) Explanatory Notes on Finance (No. 2) Act, 1991, 38.2 read as under :—
"... Keeping in view of the vital role of the publishing industry in the development of human resources, a new section 80Q has been inserted in the Income-tax Act to revive the aforesaid tax concession for five years commencing with the assessment year 1992-93."
(4) It is hereby clarified that deduction under section 80Q of the Income-tax Act is to be allowed for five years commencing from assessment year 1992-93 provided that the other conditions mentioned in the section are satisfied.
Circular : No. 706, dated 26-6-1995, as amended by, Circular No. 746, dated 26-7-1996.

What to watch

The window is fixed and closed: five assessment years starting with 1992-93, ending with 1996-97 on the section's own terms.
The other conditions of the section still have to be satisfied in each year; the circular only settles the number of years.
The text records that this circular was itself amended by Circular No. 746 dated 26 July 1996, which should be read with it.

Where you meet it

A disallowance of the twenty per cent deduction in a publisher's assessment for one of the mid-1990s years on the ground that the concession had run out.

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. 746 — Section 80Q l Profits and Gains from Business of Publication of Books 26 July 1996

← Circular No. 707 · Circular No. 705 →

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.

What this is