Section 30

Section 30 — the law in short

What the courts have decided on section 30, in one screen. Read this first; open an entry when you need the facts, the reasoning and the source.

• Ballimal Naval Kishore v CIT Supreme CourtHelps department
  I spent heavily doing up my premises and plant. Is that 'current repairs', or has the AO rightly called it capital?
  It depends on whether what you did preserved an existing asset or produced a new one. The Court approved the test that current repairs means expenditure whose purpose is not renewal or restoration but only preserving or maintaining an asset that already exists. On the facts — a cinema rebuilt with new machinery, new furniture, new sanitary fittings, new wiring and extensive structural work — it held this was a total renovation and could not be called current repairs.
• Danesh A. Irani v CIT — proportionate deduction under s.38 where only part of the premises is occupied for the business High CourtHelps departmentNo later treatment found
  I am a tenant of part of a building and I paid to replace the whole roof. The Assessing Officer has allowed me only the proportion of the area I occupy. Is that right?
  Yes, on this decision. The Bombay High Court held that where the expenditure relates to a building that is not exclusively used for the business, s.38 vests a discretion in the Assessing Officer to grant a proportionate deduction, and it upheld a deduction computed on the ratio of the area occupied — 3,700 square feet out of about 30,000.

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.