I am working as a salaried person. However, to effectively utilize my time I have started some consultancy in the spare time. Due to the initial set up, I have incurred a loss from my consultancy activities. Since I have taxable salary can I set off my consultancy losses against my salary income?
—Jignesh Dighekar, Santacruz
The Income Tax Act, 1961 contains provisions pertaining to set off of losses. According to the provisions of Income Tax Act, 1961 inter head losses could be set off against income under other head subject to exclusions. One of the exclusion is business losses to be set off against salary income. Hence, you cannot set off consultancy loss against salary income. However, if you file the return within the due dates, you can carry forward the loss and set off the loss against future consultancy income.
I am a small shopkeeper doing some small business of FMCG Products. In order to compete with large Retailers I have to offer discounts or waive charging the VAT to the customers. This is resulting in payment of substantial amount towards VAT as compared to the turnover of the business. Can I claim this VAT payment as my business expenses?
—Ravi Parekh, Vile Parle
It is your prerogative to decide how you want to conduct your business. In order to compete you have not charged the VAT amount to your customers, which is perfectly fine with the tax department. The VAT paid by you from your account is fully deductible provided you are able to show from working why you have paid higher amount towards VAT. The expenditure will not be disallowed once you are able to produce the records and convince the assessing officer.
We have some expatriates with our company on the pay roll. We have deducted TDS from the payment made to them. We want to file our TDS Return which is not possible since theses expatriates do not have PAN Nos. Can we apply and get the PAN Nos. for them?
—Sunita Salvi, Dombivali
Yes it is possible for you to obtain their PAN Nos. You need to submit their PAN Application along with their passport copy and driving license. You may attach your employment contract copy for further authentication. On processing the application PAN no shall be allotted to the foreign nationals also.