Section 80

Section 80 — the law in short

What the courts have decided on section 80, in one screen. Read this first; open an entry when you need the facts, the reasoning and the source.

• PCIT v Wipro Ltd Supreme CourtHelps department
  A declaration was required by the due date and you filed it late. Is that fatal?
  Yes. Both limbs — furnishing the declaration, and doing so before the due date for the original return — are mandatory, not directory. A claim made only in a belated revised return does not qualify.
• CIT v Kulu Valley Transport Co (P) Ltd Supreme CourtHelps taxpayer
  I filed a return showing a loss after the due date but before any assessment was made. Can the officer refuse to determine the loss and refuse to let me carry it forward?
  No, on the 1922 Act. By a majority the Supreme Court held that a voluntary loss return filed at any time before the assessment is a good return which the Income-tax Officer cannot ignore, and the loss must be determined and carried forward. Section 22(1) is to be read with section 22(3), which is in effect a proviso to it, so a return filed within the time in section 22(3) is filed within the time prescribed and the condition in section 22(2A) is satisfied. Shah, J dissented, holding that reading it that way makes section 22(2A) otiose.
• CIT v Manmohan Das (Deceased) Supreme CourtHelps taxpayer
  In the loss year the officer recorded that the loss could not be carried forward, and we did not appeal. The officer of the set-off year now says that finding is final against us. Is it?
  No. The Supreme Court held that whether a loss may be carried forward to the following year and set off is to be determined by the Income-tax Officer dealing with the assessment of that subsequent year, and that a decision recorded in the loss year — under s.24(3) of the 1922 Act, the provision now corresponding to s.157 — that the loss cannot be set off is not binding on the assessee. Failure to appeal the loss year order therefore does not forfeit the claim.
• Balaji Landmarks LLP v CBDT High CourtHelps taxpayerValidity unconfirmed
  I filed my loss return late on my CA's advice and lost the carry-forward. Will the delay be condoned?
  The Board could not refuse to condone the delay. A delay caused by acting on a professional's opinion is bona fide and not negligence, especially where the issue is fairly complex and unsettled, and refusing condonation would have permanently extinguished the carry forward of losses under s.139(3) read with s.80. The department loses nothing, because s.153(1B) gives the Assessing Officer twelve months from the end of the financial year of the return to assess. The delay was condoned and the assessment directed - but all contentions were kept open, so the losses themselves remain open to examination.
• CIT v Govind Nagar Sugar Ltd High CourtHelps taxpayerValidity unconfirmed
  The return was filed late, so the officer has refused to carry forward everything — including unabsorbed depreciation. Is depreciation really caught by the late return bar?
  No. The Delhi High Court held that s.80 and s.139(3) apply to business losses and not to unabsorbed depreciation, which is governed exclusively by s.32(2). There is accordingly no obligation to file the return within the prescribed time in order to carry forward depreciation.
• International Fresh Farm Products (India) Ltd v ITO ITATHelps taxpayerValidity unconfirmed
  CPC has refused to let me carry forward my s.35AD specified-business loss because the return went in late. Can the officer of the loss year decide that at all?
  On this Tribunal's view, no. Carry forward and set off are two separate stages: the officer of the loss year determines and notifies the loss, and it is the officer of the later year, when set-off is actually claimed, who decides whether s.80 read with s.139(3) bars it. The Bench set aside the CIT(A)'s order and directed the AO/CPC to remove the direction denying carry forward, expressly leaving the due-date objection alive for the year of set-off.

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.