India Breaking News

Sunday, January 9, 2011

Taxman's notice to SRK over 'gifted' Dubai villa

MUMBAI: A villa gifted to actor Shah Rukh Khan in Dubai has attracted the attention of tax authorities. The Income Tax (I-T) department served a notice on Khan towards the end of December for the Signature Villa valued at Rs 17.84 crore. A Dubai-based company had gifted it to him three years ago.

According to the I-T department, the villa received by Khan under a gift deed from Nakheel Public Joint Stock Company (Nakheel PJSC) was in return for lending his name to promote the company. For the assessment year 2008-09, Khan had, in April 2009, filed returns declaring income of Rs 126.31 crore. He said his income was from house, property, profession, capital gains and other sources.

Khan mentioned Dubai's Signature Villa, which is a part of The Palm, Jumeirah, as a gift given by Nakheel PJPC on September 16, 2007.

I-T department, however, assessed that the Villa was taxable and accordingly a notice was issued to Khan. The actor sent a reply to an initial notice on November 26, 2010, stating that the gift did not constitute his income from business or profession.

Nakheel, too, submitted a letter to the I-T department in October 2010, stating that Khan had not provided any professional services.

The company clarified that the actor attended the Annual day function as a gesture of friendship towards Sultan Ahmed Bin Sulayem, Nakheel PJSC's executive chairman.

However, the I-T department issued another notice on December 27, 2010 stating that Nakheel was using the brand name for endorsing its Palm Project since 2004 on its official website and electronic and print media. Also, Khan did not shown any receipts related to the endorsement.

The department alleged that for other endorsements, Khan was charging huge amounts as shown in his returns. ''The company is an artificial juristic person devoid of any natural senses such as love and affection. This rules out the concept ''natural love and affection'' and ''without any consideration'' ! which ar e vital elements to characterize the gift,'' said the demand notice.

According to the notice, an arrangement of business or transaction without putting it in writing and in good faith would under any circumstances be a business or transaction resulting in income/loss. The actor was not available for comment.

North India in the grip of cold wave, IGI fogged out

New Delhi: There was no respite from the severe cold wave conditions for Rajasthan with Mt Abu and Bikaner recording minimum temperature of minus one degree Celsius and 1.4 degree Celsius respectively.

The pink city shivered at 2.3 degree Celsius while Sriganganagar recorded minimum temperature of 2.5 degree Celsius, according to Meteorological Department.

In Churu, the temperature was 3 degree Celsius and many places in the desert state recorded minimum temperature in the range of 6 to 8 degree Celsius.

Cold waves conditions are likely to continue till Monday, it said.

Meanwhile, dense fog affected flight operations at IGI leading to diversion of six flights while two others were cancelled.

"Six flights, including one from Singapore, were diverted to Jaipur, Ahmedabad, Mumbai and Kolkata last night after fog enveloped the airport," an airport officials said.

Two domestic flights to Bangalore and Mumbai were cancelled while Air India had to reschedule departure of three of its flights to New York, Chicago and Toronto.

Fog started to descend on Saturday night around 8 pm forcing authorities to implement low visibility procedures for safe flight operations on the new runway and at 11.38 pm on main runway.

Most of the flights were using CAT I instrument landing system as runway visibility improved in the morning. Fog has affected the flight operations at airport for the past two days.

Also, train movements were affected in Delhi.

Thirty three trains have been rescheduled and seven cancelled. More than 64 trains are running late.

(With PTI Inputs)


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