Section 115R

Section 115R — the law in short

What the courts have decided on section 115R, in one screen. Read this first; open an entry when you need the facts, the reasoning and the source.

• Statutory position — s.115R, s.115S and s.115T: tax on income distributed by a mutual fund or UTI, the exemptions in the provisos to s.115R(2), and the deemed assessee in default CBDT Circulars & InstructionsCuts both waysSuperseded by amendment
  My client is a mutual fund trustee and has a demand for tax on income distributed to unit holders for a year before 2020. What rate applied to which kind of fund, what was exempt, and who is in default?
  Section 115R(2) charged a specified company or a Mutual Fund to additional income-tax on income distributed to its unit holders on or before 31 March 2020, at twenty-five per cent where distributed to an individual or HUF by a money market mutual fund or a liquid fund, thirty per cent to any other person by such a fund, ten per cent to any person by an equity oriented fund, twenty-five per cent to an individual or HUF by any other fund, and thirty per cent to any other person by any other fund; sub-section (2A) grosses the distributed income up. Section 115S charges simple interest at one per cent a month for late payment of the s.115R tax, and s.115T deems the person responsible, and the specified company or Mutual Fund, to be an assessee in default with the whole recovery machinery applying.
• Statutory position — how DDT was abolished: the end-date written into s.115-O(1), s.115R(2) and s.115BBDA(1), and the withholding that replaced it under s.194 and s.194K CBDT Circulars & InstructionsCuts both waysValidity unconfirmed
  Everyone says DDT was abolished in 2020. Which provision actually did it, from what date, and what withholding took its place on dividend and on mutual fund income?
  No section was repealed. The abolition was done by writing an end-date into the charging words themselves: s.115-O(1) now charges only dividend declared, distributed or paid 'on or after the 1st day of April, 2003 but on or before the 31st day of March, 2020'; s.115R(2) charges only income distributed by a specified company or Mutual Fund 'on or before the 31st day of March, 2020'; and s.115BBDA(1) reaches only dividend 'declared, distributed or paid by a domestic company or companies on or before the 31st day of March, 2020'. Dividend then fell to be taxed in the shareholder's hands, with withholding revived under s.194 for dividend paid by a company and s.194K for income in respect of mutual fund units, both at ten per cent.

Listed strongest first: Supreme Court, then High Court, then Tribunal, then CBDT. Nothing here has yet been read in full by a chartered accountant — open an entry to see where it came from.