Supreme Court Explains Concept Of Salary For S. 192 TDS

ITC Limited vs. CIT (Supreme Court)

15, 17, 192: Concept of “salary” explained. Held that as “tips” are paid to employees of the assessee from an outsider on a voluntary basis and the employees have no vested right to receive the same, the same is not “salary” and the assessee has no obligation to deduct TDS

It can be seen, on an analysis of Section 15, that for the said Section to apply, there should be a vested right in an employee to claim any salary from an employer or former employer, whether due or not if paid; or paid or allowed, though not due. In CIT v. L.W. Russel reported in 53 ITR 91 (SC), this Court dealt with the provisions of Section 7(1) of the 1922 Act, which preceded Sections 15 and 17 of the present Act and held that it is necessary for the employee to have a vested right to receive an amount from his employer before he could be brought to tax under the head “salaries”; Tips being purely voluntary amounts that may or may not be paid by customers for services rendered to them would not, therefore, fall within Section 15(b) at all. Also, it is clear that salary must be paid or allowed to an employee in the previous year “by or on behalf of” an employer. Even assuming that the expression “allowed” is an expression of width, the salary must be paid by or on behalf of an employer. It must first be noticed that the expression “employer” is different from the expression “person”. An “employer” is a person who employs another person under a contract of employment, express or implied, to perform work for the employer. Therefore, Section 15(b) necessarily has reference to the contract of employment between employer and employee, and salary paid or allowed must therefore have reference to such contract of employment.

Vijay Singh Kadam vs. CCIT (Delhi High Court)

245: Approach of the department of setting off / adjusting refund against demand without serving a prior s. 245 intimation to the assessee and without providing opportunity of hearing to assessee & without arriving at a satisfaction to the effect that such adjustment of refund can only be the mode of recovery of demand is bad in law. Dept directed to refund the amount set off / adjusted together with interest

In our view, the power under Section 245 of the Act, is a discretionary power given to each of the tax officers in the higher echelons to “set off the amount to be refunded or any part of that amount against the same, if any, remaining payable under this Act by the person to whom the refund is due.‟ That this power is discretionary and not mandatory is indicated by the word “may”. Secondly, the set off is in lieu of payment of refund. Thirdly, before invoking the power, the officer is expected to give an intimation in writing to the Assessee to whom the refund is due informing him of the action proposed to be taken under this Section