Wealth-tax Act 1957 s.3 — the law in short
What the courts have decided on section Wealth-tax Act 1957 s.3, in one screen. Read this first; open an entry when you need the facts, the reasoning and the source.
-
N.V. Narendranath v. CWT — property taken on partition by a coparcener who has a wife and daughters is held as a Hindu undivided family, not as an individual (Wealth-tax Act, 1957)
Supreme CourtHelps taxpayer
My client received ancestral property on a partition with his father and brothers. His family is himself, his wife and two minor daughters — no son. The officer says that with no second male member he must be assessed as an individual. Is that right?
No. The Supreme Court held there is no warrant for the contention that there must be at least two male members to form a Hindu undivided family as a taxable unit. The expression "Hindu Undivided Family" in the Wealth Tax Act is used in the sense in which a Hindu joint family is understood in the personal law of Hindus; under that law a joint family may consist of a single male member and his wife and daughters; and there is nothing in the scheme of the Wealth Tax Act to suggest that a Hindu undivided family as an assessable unit must consist of at least two male members. The appeals were allowed with costs and the status was held to have been rightly determined by the Tribunal as that of a Hindu undivided family. THE ACT CONSTRUED IS THE WEALTH-TAX ACT, 1957.
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.
