Section 80G

Section 80G — the law in short

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

• CIT (Exemption) v Batanagar Education and Research Trust Supreme CourtHelps department
  The Commissioner has cancelled my trust's registration because some corpus donations are said to be bogus — can he do that when the money was actually spent on the trust's objects?
  Yes. The Supreme Court held on 2 August 2021 that a trust which takes donations by cheque and returns the money in cash is misusing its section 12AA status and cannot keep it. The Managing Trustee had admitted in a survey that a major part of the corpus donations were accommodation entries, that part of each donation went back to the donors through named intermediaries by RTGS, and that those payments were booked as building capital expenditure. On that material the Commissioner and the Tribunal were right to cancel registration under section 12AA(3) and the consequent 80G approval, and the Calcutta High Court should not have interfered under section 260A.
• Upper Ganges Sugar Mills Ltd v CIT Supreme CourtHelps departmentNo later treatment found
  I donated to a trust that runs schools and hospitals but also has an object of maintaining places of worship. Do I still get the section 80G deduction?
  No. The Supreme Court held that Explanation 3 to section 80G does not ask whether the institution as a whole is substantially religious. It asks whether any one of its objects is wholly, or substantially wholly, of a religious nature. If one is, the institution falls outside section 80G and a donation to it earns no deduction, however charitable the rest of its objects are. The dominant purpose reasoning of Surat Art Silk, which was about the words in section 2(15), gives no help in construing Explanation 3.
• Chamber of Tax Consultants v CIT (Exemptions) High CourtHelps taxpayer
  The CIT (Exemptions) refused our trust's registration under s.12AB because the trust deed has no irrevocability or dissolution clause, and treated our 'Yes' in Row 6 of Form 10AB as false information. Is that a lawful ground of refusal?
  No, on both counts. Section 12AB tells the Commissioner what to satisfy himself about — the objects, the genuineness of the activities, and compliance with other laws material to achieving the objects — and an express irrevocability clause is not among them and cannot be implied. A public charitable trust is irrevocable by operation of law unless the deed itself reserves a power of revocation. And an answer the Department's own e-filing utility compelled the applicant to give cannot be turned against it as 'false or incorrect information'. The Bombay High Court quashed the rejections before it and also quashed every other order rejecting renewal on the same grounds.
• Deloitte Consulting India Pvt Ltd v Assessment Unit, NFAC High CourtHelps taxpayerNo later treatment found
  Your APA year has been reopened and the officer has himself re-examined whether you complied with the APA. Can he do that without a compliance audit by the Transfer Pricing Officer?
  No. Rule 10P places the compliance audit of an APA with the Transfer Pricing Officer having jurisdiction over the assessee, for each year covered by the agreement. The assessment unit had no jurisdiction to examine APA compliance on its own or to make a reassessment on that footing, and the addition of Rs 106,47,00,730 it made on that basis was beyond jurisdiction. The reopening failed independently on the s.151 sanction and because the notice was issued by the jurisdictional officer rather than the faceless assessing officer.
• CIT (Exemptions) v Shree Sai Baba Sansthan Trust High CourtHelps taxpayer
  Our trust is religious and charitable and holds 80G approval. Can the officer tax our hundi collections under s.115BBC?
  No. Section 115BBC(2)(b) takes a trust created or established wholly for religious and charitable purposes out of the charge, except for a donation given with a specific direction that it is for a university or other educational institution or a hospital or other medical institution run by the trust. The Court held that whether the trust is religious and charitable is determined from the trust deed, and that s.80G registration is a separate and independent question which cannot be used to deny that character. Rs 159.12 crores of hundi collections out of Rs 228.25 crores of donations stayed outside s.115BBC(1).
• CIT (Exemptions), Kolkata v West Bengal Welfare Society High CourtHelps taxpayerNo later treatment found
  My Form 10AB was rejected before April 2024 because it was late or filed under the wrong section code. Is that rejection the end of the matter?
  No. The Calcutta High Court, dismissing the Revenue's appeal, recorded that clause 4.1 of CBDT Circular No. 7 of 2024 dated 25 April 2024 allows a trust whose Form 10AB was rejected on or before the issue of that circular solely because it was furnished after the due date or under the wrong section code to furnish a fresh Form 10AB within the extended time in paragraph 3(ii), namely 30 June 2024. The Court also approved the Tribunal's construction that a trust becomes eligible to apply for final registration only after the grant of provisional approval, so the clause (iii) time limit must be read in that light.
• Shri Anandpur Satsang Trust v CIT (Exemptions), Chandigarh High CourtHelps taxpayer
  My Form 10AB under s.80G(5) was one day late and the Commissioner rejected it, saying he has no power to condone. Is a delay of one day really fatal?
  No. The Punjab and Haryana High Court set aside the rejection and remanded the matter for a fresh order to be passed without taking the delay into account, holding that a delay of one day in filing Form 10AB cannot in itself be made a ground to reject the application. The Court did not decide the Commissioner's contention that he has no power to condone delay at all — it held only that this delay could not justify the rejection.
• Additional CIT v Abhai Maligai High CourtHelps taxpayerSuperseded by amendment
  I built a structure for a temple at my own cost instead of handing over money. Can I claim the s.80G deduction for what I spent?
  Not now. Explanation 5 to s.80G, inserted by the Finance Act 1976 with effect from 1 April 1976, declares that no deduction is allowed under the section unless the donation is of a sum of money. This judgment allowed such a claim only because it concerned AY 1969-70, before that Explanation existed, and the Madras High Court expressly recorded that the Explanation was inserted to get over decisions of that kind.
• Sumit Maloo v ITO, Kishangarh ITATHelps taxpayerNo later treatment found
  The Assessing Officer has disallowed my whole Chapter VI-A block — 80C, 80D, 80G — and my HRA, saying I filed no documentary evidence. I did file it. What do I do?
  The Jaipur Tribunal restored almost all of it, holding that where the assessee has actually placed the evidence on record the Assessing Officer and the CIT(A) cannot disallow "arbitrarily" without discussing those documents. On s.80D in particular the Tribunal allowed Rs 50,000 of medical expenditure incurred on a dependent father who was a senior citizen suffering from Parkinson's, on the strength of a doctor's prescription, the father's Aadhaar showing his age, and bank entries evidencing the spend — with no insurance policy at all.
• Society for Human Transformation and Research v ITO (Exemptions) ITATHelps taxpayerNo later treatment found
  My trust gave interest-free or low-interest advances to entities connected with its trustees. The Assessing Officer has treated the interest not charged as a benefit to specified persons, disallowed it under s.40A(2)(a) and denied exemption on the whole income. Can he do that?
  Not on this record. Where the counterparties are themselves institutions registered under s.12A and s.80G and there is no material showing that any specified person derived a personal benefit, the transactions do not establish diversion of charitable funds for private benefit, and s.13(1)(c) is not attracted. Section 40A(2)(a) cannot be used at all: it disallows excessive or unreasonable expenditure paid to a related party in the course of business or profession, and does not authorise an addition for interest the trust failed to charge.
• Advaya Charitable Foundation v CIT (Exemptions), Mumbai ITATHelps taxpayerNo later treatment found
  My Form 10AB for final registration under s.12AB was rejected as time-barred because I missed the 30 June 2024 date in Circular 7/2024. Is anything left to me?
  Yes. From 1 October 2024 a proviso to s.12A(1)(ac) lets the Principal Commissioner or Commissioner condone a delay in filing the application where he considers there is reasonable cause, and the Tribunal restored the matter to the CIT(E) with liberty to the trust to make a condonation application. The delay itself was not in dispute; what saved the trust was that the rejection order recorded no defect in its objects, its activities or its documents, its bona fides were not questioned, and the delay did not prima facie appear deliberate.
• Infosys Green Forum v ITO (Exemptions) ITATHelps department
  We set up a section 8 company to hold a CSR asset that supplies its output back to the founder company. Will it get registration under s.12AB?
  On these facts, no. The Bangalore Tribunal accepted that running a solar power plant is preservation of the environment and so falls within s.2(15). But the plant's entire output went to the founder, at a rate below what the founder would otherwise have paid, with the founder keeping all the green benefits. There being no benefit to the public or to a section of the public, the dominant object was the founder's own, and registration under s.12AB and approval under s.80G were both refused.
• Care and Share Charitable Trust v CIT (Exemptions), Chennai ITATHelps taxpayerNo later treatment found
  My Form 10AB for final approval under s.80G was rejected for a delay of two days and the CIT(E) says he has no power to condone it for 80G. Is that right, and is there a way round?
  The CIT(E) is right that s.80G carries no condonation power — the proviso inserted in 2024 permitting condonation sits in s.12A(1)(ac) and governs registration, not 80G approval. The way round is clause (iv)(B) of the first proviso to s.80G(5) — a clause that is older than the 2024 amendment and was not inserted by it, but which the Finance (No. 2) Act 2024 opened up with effect from 1 October 2024 by omitting the words that had confined item (B) to an institution no part of whose income had been excluded under sub-clause (iv), (v), (vi) or (via) of s.10(23C) or under s.11 or s.12 for any previous year ending on or before the date of application — so that an institution whose activities have commenced may now apply at any time after commencement; the Tribunal directed the CIT(E) to treat the out-of-time clause (iii) application as one made under clause (iv)(B) and to decide it on the merits.
• Bhagwandas Zalani Family Charitable Trust v CIT (Exemption), Bhopal ITATHelps taxpayerNo later treatment found
  My trust filed Form 10BD for the whole financial year although its s.80G provisional approval began mid-year, so Forms 10BE were generated for pre-approval donations too. The CIT (Exemption) has refused final registration and approval on that ground. Is that a valid reason?
  Not on its own. The Indore Bench held that a wrong filing of information in Form 10BD does not mean the trust's activities are not genuine, and that the requirement was new from 1 April 2021 with sub-rule (3)(i) of Rule 18AB in terms speaking of all donations of the same nature paid during the financial year, so a trust could honestly have read it as covering the whole year. Because the trust filed fresh evidence — declarations from donors that they had never been given the Forms 10BE and had claimed no deduction — the matter was remanded for fresh consideration.
• Hemkunt Foundations v PCIT ITATHelps taxpayerNo later treatment found
  The PCIT cancelled our 12A registration after a survey. Was he even allowed to do that?
  No, on both counts here. Authority to grant or cancel registration under s.12AB lies with the CIT (Exemption), not the Principal Commissioner, and the 'specified violation' clause in s.12AB(4) took effect on 1 April 2022, so it cannot be applied to conduct in financial year 2020-21 or 2021-22.
• Polynova Industries Limited v DCIT 14(1)(1), Mumbai ITATHelps taxpayerNo later treatment found
  An internal audit objection has produced a s.263 notice saying CSR spending is not voluntary and so is not a 'donation' at all for s.80G. Does that argument let the Commissioner revise my assessment?
  No, not while the point remains genuinely open. The Tribunal held that the eligibility of CSR expenditure for s.80G is a question on which Benches differ — the Bangalore and Kolkata Benches allow it, the Delhi Bench in Agilent Technologies disallows it — so an Assessing Officer who allows it has adopted one of two reasonably possible views and the s.263 jurisdiction does not arise.
• Imam Ahmed Raza Educational and Welfare Trust v CIT (Exemptions), Bangalore ITATHelps departmentNo later treatment found
  I withdrew my Form 10AB before the CIT(E), he then passed an order recording the withdrawal and rejecting the form, and now the portal will not let me file a fresh one. Can I appeal against that order?
  No. Where the trust itself withdrew the application, no cause of action arises to prefer an appeal against the order that records the withdrawal and rejects the form, and the appeal is not maintainable. The Tribunal dismissed both the s.12AB and the s.80G appeals on that footing and gave no direction about the portal difficulty that had prompted them.
• Grow Foundation v CIT (Exemption) ITATHelps taxpayerNo later treatment found
  My trust's application in Form 10AB for final approval under s.80G(5) was rejected as time-barred. Do the CBDT circulars extending the date save it?
  Yes, on this decision. The Tribunal held that the application could not be rejected merely because it was not filed by 30 September 2023, that date having been arrived at through CBDT Circular No.6/2023 and then further extended to 30 June 2024 by CBDT Circular No.7/2024. The rejection was set aside and the matter restored to the CIT (Exemption) for de novo consideration on merits.
• ACIT v Armee Infotech ITATHelps taxpayer
  The Assessing Officer says my s.80GGC deduction fails because he cannot trace what the party did with the money, and because the party did not file its return. Does the section require me to answer for that?
  No. Section 80GGC requires a contribution, otherwise than in cash, to a political party registered under s.29A of the Representation of the People Act 1951, by an assessee who is not a local authority or a Government-funded artificial juridical person. Nothing in the Act puts the donor under an obligation to ensure how the donee uses the funds, and an enquiry directed at that is misdirected.
• JMS Mining Pvt Ltd v PCIT-2, Kolkata ITATHelps taxpayer
  I added back my company's CSR spend under Explanation 2 to s.37(1) and then claimed 50 per cent of it under s.80G. The Commissioner says s.37 blocks that and has revised the assessment under s.263. Is he right?
  No. Explanation 2 to s.37(1) operates only while computing business income under Chapter IV-D; it says nothing about Chapter VI-A, so a CSR contribution that independently satisfies s.80G remains deductible under s.80G. Parliament carved out only two CSR items in s.80G itself — clauses (iiihk) and (iiihl), the Swachh Bharat Kosh and the Clean Ganga Fund — and by expressio unius that exclusion implies every other qualifying donation survives.
• CBDT Circular 7/2024 CBDT Circulars & InstructionsHelps taxpayer
  Our Form 10AB was rejected for late filing. Does the CBDT let us apply again?
  Yes, but only within the window this circular opened. The due date for Form 10A and Form 10AB was extended to 30 June 2024, and entities whose Form 10AB was rejected solely for late filing or for filing under the wrong section code could file fresh applications within that extended time.

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.