Section 234C

Section 234C — the law in short

What the courts have decided on section 234C, in one screen. Read this first; open an entry when you need the facts, the reasoning and the source.

• JCIT v Rolta India Ltd Supreme CourtHelps department
  My company paid no advance tax because we only knew we would fall under MAT once the accounts were audited — is interest under sections 234B and 234C still chargeable on the tax on book profit?
  Yes. The Supreme Court held on 7 January 2011 that interest under sections 234B and 234C is payable on failure to pay advance tax in respect of tax payable under section 115JA or section 115JB. Neither interest section makes any exception for the minimum alternate tax, and assessed tax means the tax determined on regular assessment, which is the tax determined by applying those provisions. Both sections 115JA and 115JB expressly say that all other provisions of the Act apply to a MAT company, and the Finance Acts provided for advance tax on them. Circular No. 13/2001 therefore has no application.
• CIT v Tulsyan NEC Ltd Supreme CourtHelps taxpayer
  The Assessing Officer computed interest under s.234B and s.234C first and only then gave me credit for MAT under s.115JAA. My refund has turned into a demand. Is that the right order?
  No. MAT credit admissible under s.115JAA must be set off against the tax payable before interest under s.234B and s.234C is calculated, not after. The right to the set-off crystallises when the tax under s.115JA (now s.115JB) is paid and does not depend on any determination by the Assessing Officer, so an assessee may take the credit into account even when estimating advance tax on its current income.
• CIT v Anjum M.H. Ghaswala Supreme CourtHelps department
  Can interest under ss.234A, 234B and 234C be waived?
  Not by the authority hearing your case. The levy is mandatory and automatic, and even the Settlement Commission cannot reduce or waive it. The only route to relief is a CBDT circular issued under s.119.
• CIT, Agra v M/s Oswal Exports High CourtHelps taxpayerNo later treatment found
  My assessment order just says 'interest will be charged as per rules'. It never names s.234A, s.234B or s.234C. Is that enough to levy the interest?
  The Allahabad High Court held it is not. The direction must be specific and clear, so that the assessee knows the Assessing Officer applied his mind and ordered interest under a particular section; a general direction to charge interest as per rules or as per law is not a specific order and no interest can be levied on it. The Court expressly considered the Supreme Court's order in Karanvir Singh Gossal and held that it does not displace this requirement.
• CIT v Smt. Premlata Jalani High CourtHelps taxpayer
  My capital gain arose after 15 March, so I could not have paid advance tax on it in any instalment. The Assessing Officer has charged s.234C interest from the first instalment date. Can he?
  No. The Rajasthan High Court held that the liability to pay advance tax on a capital gain arises only once the gain has accrued, so interest under s.234C on the shortfall attributable to that gain can run only from the date the advance tax on it became payable, and not from any earlier instalment date. Where the gain arose after 15 March, the proviso required only that the tax be paid by 31 March, and interest ran for that period alone.
• Dr. Prannoy Roy v CIT High CourtHelps taxpayer
  I paid the whole tax before the due date but filed the return eleven months late. The Assessing Officer has still charged interest under s.234A. Can he?
  No, not on tax already in the Revenue's hands before the due date. The Delhi High Court held that s.234A creates a compensatory levy, not a penalty, so where the tax was deposited before the due date of filing the return the Revenue has suffered no loss and no interest under s.234A is payable; interest runs only on tax not deposited before that date.
• Pascal Postel v DDIT (Inv.) ITATHelps taxpayerNo later treatment found
  The officer has charged interest under s.40 of the Black Money Act on top of the tax. Is there any machinery for it, and can I still fight the quantum in the appeal against the rectification order?
  Interest under s.40(2) was held unworkable, because the advance-tax machinery on which ss.234B and 234C of the Income-tax Act operate is absent from the Black Money Act, so there is no statutory liability to pay advance tax on which the interest can bite. Interest under s.40(1) was held not to arise where the foreign source itself was disclosed, the expression 'not disclosed' meaning complete suppression of the source and not a difference in the quantum assessed. On the procedural point, where an assessment order under s.10 is altered by a rectification order under s.12, the two are read together as one composite order, so the appeal against the rectified order carries the underlying quantum with it.
• Abhishek Rajeshbhai Karia v ITO, Ahmedabad ITATCuts both waysNo later treatment found
  My s.148 reassessment started over a political donation but the Assessing Officer has disallowed my 80D and 80DDB for my parents' medical expenses as well. Are those safe?
  On this order the s.80D claim of Rs 75,000 for health insurance premium and medical expenditure incurred for the assessee's parents was allowed outright, the Tribunal holding the disallowance unjustified because the expenditure was incurred for his parents and is deductible under s.80D. The s.80DDB claim of Rs 87,000 for a father diagnosed with cancer was NOT allowed: it went back to the Assessing Officer because eleven documents called for had never been produced either before him or before the CIT(A).
• Saguna Rural Foundation v Exemption Ward 2(3), Mumbai ITATHelps taxpayerNo later treatment found
  CPC denied my s.11(2) accumulation because Form 10 was filed after the s.139(1) due date, and the CIT(A) said s.13(9) settles it. Can the Tribunal still help me?
  Yes. Following the jurisdictional High Court in CIT v Sakal Relief Fund, the Mumbai Tribunal held that filing Form No. 10 before completion of assessment satisfies s.11(2), so a s.143(1) denial founded only on the s.139(1) due date cannot stand. The matter was restored to the Assessing Officer for the limited purpose of checking that the stated purpose of accumulation matches the objects and is backed by a trustees' resolution, with an express direction not to deny exemption on merely technical grounds.
• CDO Jain Education Society v ACIT (CPC) ITATHelps taxpayerNo later treatment found
  My institution filed its audit report on time but in Form 10B when Form 10BB was the right form, and the CPC has denied the exemption and raised a demand on the gross receipts. Is filing the wrong audit form fatal?
  No. Where the accounts were in fact audited by a chartered accountant and an audit report was uploaded within time, the choice of the wrong form is a procedural lapse and not a failure of the substantive condition, and exemption cannot be denied on that ground alone. The Tribunal set aside the appellate order and directed the Assessing Officer to verify substantive compliance and, if satisfied, to condone the procedural lapse, allow the exemption and reduce the demand to nil.
• Ashokkumar Gokulchand Sananda v ACIT, Akola Circle ITATHelps taxpayerNo later treatment found
  The CBDT cancelled my donee's s.35(1)(ii) approval with retrospective effect two years after I donated, and the reassessment has taken away my 175 per cent weighted deduction and added a notional commission. Does the deduction survive?
  Yes, on these facts. The Explanation in s.35(1) says in terms that the deduction shall not be denied merely because the approval granted to the institution has been withdrawn after the payment, so a retrospective cancellation is by itself no ground for disallowance. A general Investigation Wing report about the donee, never furnished to the donor and never linked to his particular transaction, will not carry the disallowance either, and the consequential s.69C commission addition falls with it.
• Sophos Technologies Pvt Ltd v DCIT ITATHelps taxpayerNo later treatment found
  Your APA produced extra income for a year whose advance tax dates passed long ago, and you paid s.234B and s.234C interest on it in the modified return. Can you get it back?
  Yes, before this Bench. The Tribunal directed the jurisdictional Assessing Officer to delete the additional s.234B and s.234C interest levied on the income added by the APA and to refund it, and allowed the appeal. It gave that direction in one sentence, as following the precedents placed before it; it did not set out reasoning of its own on the interest question.
• Kae Capital Fund v ITO — the live question whether a SEBI 1996-Regulations venture capital fund is an "investment fund" under s.115UB, and why the Tribunal never reached it ITATHelps taxpayerNo later treatment found
  The Commissioner (Appeals) has directed the Assessing Officer to allow my fund's section 10(23FB) exemption only if it proves it is not an investment fund under Explanation 1 to section 115UB, without ever hearing us. Has anyone decided whether a SEBI venture capital fund registered under the 1996 Regulations is inside section 115UB?
  Not in this order, and that is the point to take from it. The Mumbai Tribunal set the Commissioner (Appeals)' order aside and restored the appeal for de novo adjudication because a request for a personal hearing through video conferencing had been made and not granted, which clause 12 of the Faceless Appeal Scheme, 2021 does not permit — the Commissioner (Appeals) "shall allow such request". Having remitted on that ground the Tribunal expressly held that the assessee's other grievances did not call for adjudication at that stage. So the substantive question — whether a fund holding a certificate under the SEBI (Venture Capital Funds) Regulations, 1996 that has not migrated to the SEBI (Alternative Investment Funds) Regulations, 2012 is an "investment fund" within clause (a) of Explanation 1 to section 115UB, and so loses section 10(23FB) by the proviso inserted with effect from 1 April 2016 — remains undecided.
• Ravi Ramakrishnan v ITO (International Taxation) — the section 56(2)(vii)(b) addition must be added back as cost under section 49(4), even though it was never claimed in the return ITATHelps taxpayerNo later treatment found
  The DRP has refused my client's alternative plea for the section 49(4) cost step-up because it was not made in the return, citing Goetze. Is that the end of it?
  No. The Tribunal directed the Assessing Officer to recompute the capital gain in accordance with section 49(4), notwithstanding that the DRP had rejected the same plea on the footing that additional cost of acquisition could only be claimed through the return of income. Where the officer has taken a particular value into account for the section 56(2)(vii)(b) addition, that value is the deemed cost of acquisition and the capital gain must be recomputed on it.
• Sarvajanik Seva Trust v DCIT ITATHelps taxpayer
  The CPC has processed my trust's return at the maximum marginal rate, saying s.115TD applies. But the trust gave up its registration back in March 2015. Can s.115TD reach it at all?
  Not on those facts. Section 115TD was inserted by the Finance Act 2016; the order records it as taking effect from 1 June 2016 in one place and from assessment year 2016-17 in another. On either date, where the trust's registration had already ceased with effect from 20 March 2015 there was no registered trust for the section to bite on, and the total income had to be charged at the slab rates and not at the maximum marginal rate.
• Investcorp Real Estate Yield Fund v ITO — an AIF assessed as a representative assessee under s.160(1)(iv) read with s.164(1) gets credit for advance tax and TDS paid under its beneficiaries' PANs ITATCuts both waysNo later treatment found
  Our fund is a SEBI-registered AIF trust that offers the whole of its income as a representative assessee. Part of the year's advance tax and TDS went in under the beneficiaries' PANs and part under the fund's own. The CPC has refused the beneficiary-PAN credits. Can the fund claim them?
  Yes, on these facts. The Mumbai Tribunal upheld the appellate finding that because the corresponding income had been offered by the trust in its capacity as representative assessee within the meaning of section 160(1)(iv) read with section 164(1), the trust deserved the credit for the advance tax and the tax deducted at source as claimed in its return, including the advance tax of Rs.2,84,60,753 paid under the beneficiaries' permanent account numbers and the TDS of Rs.65,57,000 that had been disallowed. The Assessing Officer was directed, while allowing those credits, to ensure that no similar credit was availed by the beneficiaries. The assessee's appeal — which was against that anti-duplication direction and against the interest under sections 234B and 234C — was dismissed.
• Prashant Vijay Kale v CPC, Bengaluru ITATHelps taxpayerNo later treatment found
  I filed my return on time and then revised it. CPC has ignored the original, treated the revised return as my first return, and charged s.234F fee and s.234A interest. Can that be undone?
  Yes. The Mumbai Bench found that the original return had been filed within the s.139(1) due date and that CPC and the CIT(A) had simply ignored it, and deleted both the Rs 5,000 fee under s.234F and the interest under s.234A charged on the footing that the revised return's date was the date of filing. Revising a return does not make a timely return late.
• ITO v Karanvir Singh Gossal (on remand from the Supreme Court) ITATHelps departmentNo later treatment found
  My assessment order under s.143(3) says nothing at all about interest, but Form ITNS 150 issued the same day charges s.234B and s.234C interest. Is the levy good?
  On these facts the Tribunal upheld it. Following the Supreme Court's own order in the assessee's case (Civil Appeal No. 1937 of 2007, judgment dated 6 September 2012), it held that where interest is leviable under s.234B or s.234C the levy is mandatory and compensatory in nature, and that the assessee's remedy is not to resist the charge but to apply to the Chief Commissioner for waiver or reduction under the Board's circular.
• Vinitkumar Raghavjibhai Bhalodia v ITO — a gift by an HUF to its member is a gift from 'relatives', and is in any event exempt under section 10(2) ITATHelps taxpayer
  My client received Rs 60 lakh from his own HUF. The Assessing Officer says an HUF is not a 'relative' in the Explanation, so it is taxable. What is the answer?
  There are two answers and the Rajkot Bench gave both. First, an HUF is not a body of individuals but 'a group of relatives' — every person who composes it falls within the Explanation's list — so a gift from the HUF to a member is a gift from relatives and is outside the charge. Second and independently, a sum received by a member out of the income of the family is exempt under section 10(2), which requires only that he is a member and that the sum came out of the income of the family.
• Statutory position — s.194K: ten per cent on income in respect of mutual fund units, the ten thousand rupee threshold from 1 April 2025, and why capital gains on units are outside it CBDT Circulars & InstructionsCuts both ways
  My mutual fund has deducted ten per cent under section 194K. Should it be deducting on the redemption proceeds and on my capital gains as well, and what is the threshold now?
  No. The section applies to income in respect of units of a specified mutual fund, or units from the Administrator of the specified undertaking or from the specified company, and the second limb of its proviso says in terms that it does not apply 'if the income is of the nature of capital gains'. The rate is ten per cent, and no deduction is made where the income credited or paid, or likely to be credited or paid, during the financial year does not exceed ten thousand rupees — a figure substituted for five thousand rupees with effect from 1 April 2025.
• Statutory position — ss.207(1) and 208: who has to pay advance tax at all, and the ten thousand rupee threshold CBDT Circulars & InstructionsCuts both ways
  The notice charges me interest under s.234B for not paying advance tax. Before I argue about the computation, was I even liable to pay advance tax in the first place?
  Two conditions have to be satisfied before any advance tax liability arises. Section 207(1) makes tax payable in advance during a financial year, in accordance with ss.208 to 219, in respect of the total income of the assessee which would be chargeable for the assessment year immediately following that financial year — that income being called the "current income"; and s.208 then says advance tax shall be payable during a financial year only in every case where the amount of such tax payable by the assessee during that year, computed in accordance with Chapter XVII-C, is ten thousand rupees or more.
• Statutory position — ss.215, 216 and 217: the advance tax interest scheme that ran before s.234B and s.234C, and the s.215(4) waiver power CBDT Circulars & InstructionsCuts both waysNo later treatment found
  I am defending an old assessment year, or a reassessment for one, and the order charges interest under s.215 or s.217 rather than s.234B. What do those sections actually require, and can the interest be waived?
  Sections 215, 216 and 217 are the interest provisions that preceded s.234B and s.234C, and they are all keyed to estimates under s.209A or s.212 — both of which were omitted by the Direct Tax Laws (Amendment) Act, 1987 with effect from 1 April 1988, while s.234C(2) provides that s.234C applies to assessments for the assessment year commencing on 1 April 1989 and subsequent years. Section 215(1) charges simple interest at fifteen per cent per annum where advance tax paid on the assessee's own estimate is less than seventy-five per cent of the assessed tax (eighty-three and one-third per cent for a company), from 1 April following the financial year to the date of the regular assessment; s.216 charges interest at the same rate where the assessee under-estimated and thereby reduced either of the first two instalments, or wrongly deferred payment under s.213; and s.217 charges it where no statement or estimate was sent at all. Section 215(4) — applied to s.217 by s.217(2) — gives the Assessing Officer power to 'reduce or waive the interest payable by the assessee under this section' in such cases and circumstances as may be prescribed.
• Statutory position — the first proviso to s.234C(1): no interest for a shortfall caused by capital gains, casual income, first-year business income or dividend income CBDT Circulars & InstructionsCuts both ways
  My client sold a property in February and paid the whole tax on it with the March instalment. The intimation still charges s.234C interest on the June, September and December instalments. Is there a defence in the section itself?
  Yes, and it is in the section itself rather than in any circular. The first proviso to s.234C(1) disapplies the sub-section to any shortfall in the payment of tax due on the returned income where the shortfall is on account of under-estimate or failure to estimate (a) the amount of capital gains, (b) income of the nature referred to in s.2(24)(ix) — casual income such as winnings from lotteries, crossword puzzles and races, (c) income under the head 'Profits and gains of business or profession' in cases where the income accrues or arises under that head for the first time, or (d) the amount of dividend income. The relief is conditional: the assessee must have paid the whole of the tax payable in respect of that income, computed as if it were part of the total income, as part of the remaining instalments of advance tax which are due, or where no such instalments are due, by 31 March of the financial year.
• Statutory position — s.211: the four advance tax instalments, and the single 15 March instalment for a s.44AD or s.44ADA presumptive assessee CBDT Circulars & InstructionsCuts both ways
  My client returns income under s.44AD. The CPC has charged s.234C interest on four instalments. Is a presumptive assessee not entitled to pay the whole advance tax by 15 March?
  He is. Section 211(1) now splits assessees into two classes: clause (a) covers 'all the assessees, other than the assessee referred to in clause (b)', who pay in four instalments — fifteen per cent by 15 June, forty-five per cent by 15 September, seventy-five per cent by 15 December and the whole by 15 March, each cumulative and reduced by earlier instalments; clause (b) covers 'an assessee who declares profits and gains in accordance with the provisions of sub-section (1) of section 44AD or sub-section (1) of section 44ADA', who pays 'to the extent of the whole amount of such advance tax during each financial year on or before the 15th March'. Section 234C(1)(b) mirrors this exactly, charging a presumptive assessee interest only on the shortfall from the tax due on the returned income as at 15 March.
• Section 84 of the Black Money Act - the Income-tax Act provisions applied CBDT Circulars & InstructionsCuts both waysNo later treatment found
  Which provisions of the Income-tax Act apply to the Black Money Act, and can the officer borrow one that is not on the list?
  Section 84 applies a closed list: clauses (c) and (d) of s.90(1), clauses (c) and (d) of s.90A(1), ss.119, 133, 134, 135 and 138, the whole of Chapter XV, and ss.237, 240, 245, 280, 280A, 280B, 280D, 281, 281B and 284 of the Income-tax Act, with necessary modifications, as if they referred to undisclosed foreign income and asset instead of to income-tax. The list is expressed as an enumeration and the decided points located in this area turn on what is left out of it. Sections 234A, 234B and 234C are not on it, which is why the Chennai Bench in Pascal Postel held that the interest charge in s.40(2) has no advance-tax machinery to operate on; s.230 is not on it either, which is the omission on which Preetha Krishna (Madras High Court) is understood to turn, though no copy of that judgment was opened for this note.
• Statutory position — s.207(2): a resident individual of sixty or more with no business income is outside advance tax altogether CBDT Circulars & InstructionsCuts both ways
  My client is 71, resident, retired, and lives on pension, interest and capital gains. The CPC intimation charges her interest under s.234B and s.234C. Is she liable to advance tax at all?
  No. Section 207(2) says in terms that the provisions of sub-section (1) shall not apply to an individual resident in India who (a) does not have any income chargeable under the head 'Profits and gains of business or profession' and (b) is of the age of sixty years or more at any time during the previous year. Once s.207(1) does not apply, there is no advance tax liability to default on, and s.234B and s.234C — which both operate on an assessee liable to pay advance tax under s.208 — have nothing to attach to.
• Statutory position — s.234D: interest on a refund granted under s.143(1) that regular assessment shows should not have been granted — the rate, the period, the reduction under sub-section (2), and Explanation 2 for assessment years commencing before 1 June 2003 CBDT Circulars & InstructionsCuts both ways
  We were given a refund when the return was processed under s.143(1). On scrutiny the Assessing Officer has now raised a demand and has also charged interest under s.234D on the refund. Is that right, for how long does the interest run, and can he do it for an assessment year that is older than the section itself?
  Yes, on the conditions in sub-section (1). Section 234D charges simple interest where a refund is granted to the assessee under s.143(1) and either (a) no refund is due on regular assessment, or (b) the amount refunded under s.143(1) exceeds the amount refundable on regular assessment. The rate is one-half per cent, on the whole or the excess amount so refunded, for every month or part of a month comprised in the period from the date of grant of refund to the date of such regular assessment. The section was inserted by the Finance Act, 2003 with effect from 1 June 2003, and the words "one-half per cent" were substituted for "two-third" by the Taxation Laws (Amendment) Act, 2003 with effect from 8 September 2003 — both recorded in footnotes printed against the section. Sub-section (2) provides that where, as a result of an order under s.154, s.155, s.250, s.254, s.260, s.262, s.263 or s.264, or an order of the Settlement Commission under s.245D(4), the refund granted under s.143(1) is held to be correctly allowed either in whole or in part, the interest chargeable under sub-section (1) shall be reduced accordingly. Explanation 1 makes a first-time assessment under s.147 or s.153A a regular assessment for the purposes of the section. Explanation 2, which the later editions of the section print and the earlier ones do not, reads: "For the removal of doubts, it is hereby declared that the provisions of this section shall also apply to an assessment year commencing before the 1st day of June, 2003 if the proceedings in respect of such assessment year is completed after the said date." Which amending Act inserted Explanation 2, and from what date, is not established here — the editions of the section that print it carry no footnotes, and the editions that carry footnotes do not print it.
• CBDT Circular No. 9/2001 dated 9 July 2001 — on a regular assessment under section 172(7) the non-resident is liable to interest under sections 234B and 234C and entitled to interest under section 244A; Circular No. 730 withdrawn CBDT Circulars & InstructionsCuts both ways
  Our foreign shipping client elected under section 172(7) for a regular assessment and is now getting a refund. The Department says no interest is payable on it because of an old Board circular. Is that circular still good?
  It is not. Circular No. 9/2001 dated 9 July 2001 withdrew Circular No. 730 dated 14 December 1995 as "no longer legally tenable" in the light of the Supreme Court's decision in A.S. Glittre D/5 I/S Garonne v. CIT, and clarified that on a regular assessment under s.172(7) the non-resident assessee is liable to pay interest under sections 234B and 234C and is also entitled to receive interest under s.244A, as the case may be. Circular No. 730 had said the opposite: that an assessee exercising the s.172(7) option was neither liable to interest under ss.234B and 234C nor entitled to interest under s.244A.

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.