Cellphone major Nokia India Pvt. Ltd. has moved the Madras High Court again challenging an assessment order of the Deputy Commissioner (Commercial Taxes), Chennai, imposing tax on the company for nearly Rs. 546.60 crore, including penalty.
Justice S.Vaidyanathan has admitted the petition and ordered notice.
The company alleged that the authorities had acted without jurisdiction in imposing demand of Central Sales Tax on export sales which did not attract the levy in violation of the Tamil Nadu Value Added Tax and the Central Sales Tax (CST) Act.
Originally, the company had approached the High Court last year challenging the huge tax demand of nearly Rs.2400 crores for three assessment years from 2009-10. The court had quashed the assessment order of February 28 last year and directed the company to deposit 10 per cent of the tax amount as a pre-condition for reviving the assessment order. Later, the court granted liberty to the department to complete the fresh assessment on production of relevant material by the petitioner.
The company said it submitted all the export documents, details and its representatives appeared before the authorities and reiterated the submissions. The impugned order of December 12, 2014 imposed a tax demand of nearly Rs.266.37 crore along with a penalty of Rs.280.23 crore for the assessment year 2009-10.
The petitioner said that a perusal of the impugned order would reveal that the commercial tax authorities had not made any attempt at all, leave alone even a perfunctory or preliminary attempt, to record any finding on how and in what manner the export transactions on which CST demand was confirmed.
The exports by the company could not be construed as inter-State sales since neither there was any movement of goods nor were the sales effected by transfer of documents of title to the goods during their movement from one State to another.
The company sought quashing of the impugned order.
An assessment order of the Deputy Commissioner (Commercial Taxes), for imposing tax challenged
