Section 33 — the law in short
What the courts have decided on section 33, in one screen. Read this first; open an entry when you need the facts, the reasoning and the source.
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Malabar Fisheries Co v CIT
Supreme CourtHelps taxpayerSuperseded by amendment
Our firm dissolved and the assets went to the partners. Has the firm transferred those assets, so that allowances it claimed on them can be withdrawn?
No, on the law as it then stood. The Supreme Court held that a partnership firm under the Indian Partnership Act 1932 is not a distinct legal entity apart from its partners, and the firm as such has no separate rights of its own in the partnership assets. What follows dissolution - the distribution, division or allotment of assets after liabilities are discharged - is nothing but a mutual adjustment of rights between the partners, so there is no extinguishment of any right of the firm and no transfer within section 2(47). The Court added a second reason: dissolution precedes distribution, so the distribution is not made by the firm at all.
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.