Title: Role of case laws and legality of taxation in the context of tax on services in India

Authors: J.M. Kennedy; C. Rabbiraj

Addresses: VIT School of Law, VIT, Chennai, Tamil Nadu, 600127, India ' VIT School of Law, VIT, Chennai, Tamil Nadu, 600127, India

Abstract: Constitution is the fountainhead and basis of all laws. Article 265 of India's Constitution states, "No tax will be levied or collected except by legislation". The statute must use the constitution's legislative powers and be compatible with its provisions to charge and collect taxes. In India, taxing services was prohibited by the constitution. First, integrated tax is applied to the registered person's credit/debit ledger. Any residual sum goes to core tax, state tax, and union territory tax. First, increase central tax. Any remaining sum goes to state or territory tax. As the tax base grew by adding taxable services each year, the courts had to rule on their constitutionality. The authors show how the judiciary legalised the tax on services from 1994 to 2017. Using aspect theory, the courts justified the apparent overlap between taxation entries in list I - union list and list II - state list of the Constitution of India, leading to a distinct tax base for taxing services and examining aspect theory's role in generating taxable services.

Keywords: aspect theory; Constitution of India; consumption tax; goods and services tax; indirect tax; interpretation of the statute; the legality of tax; taxation; tax on services; India.

DOI: 10.1504/IJIPM.2023.134059

International Journal of Intellectual Property Management, 2023 Vol.13 No.3/4, pp.350 - 363

Received: 05 Aug 2022
Accepted: 31 Oct 2022
Published online: 10 Oct 2023 *

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