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Income Tax Appellate Tribunal, “B” BENCH : BANGALORE
Before: SHRI CHANDRA POOJARI & SMT. BEENA PILLAI
Per Chandra Poojari, Accountant Member
This appeal by the assessee is directed against the order of CIT(Appeals) dated 23.10.2017 for the assessment year 2014-15.
The only issue raised in this appeal is regarding addition of RS.82,06,430 being interest earned on surplus funds deposited in banks under the head income from other sources.
The assessee is a cooperative society and registered under the Cooperative Societies Act, 1959. It is engaged in rendering service of acquiring land and getting it converted and developing into residential sites and allotting to its members as plots/villas/flats. The assessee received interest income of Rs.82,06,430 on fixed deposits from Canara Bank. The AO held that interest income is received on investment of surplus funds and not from operational activities of the assessee and held it to be taxable as income from other sources. The CIT(Appeals) confirmed the order of the AO. Against this, the assessee is in appeal before us.
After hearing both the parties, we are of the opinion that this issue is covered against the assessee by the judgment of the Supreme Court in the case of Bangalore Club (350 ITR 309)(SC) wherein it was held as under:-
“25. This brings us to the facts of the present case. As aforesaid, the assessee is an AOP. The concerned banks are all corporate members of the club. The interest earned from fixed deposits kept with non- member banks was offered for taxation and the tax due was paid. Therefore, we are required to examine the case of the assessee, in relation to the interest earned on fixed deposits with the member banks, on the touchstone of the three cumulative conditions, enumerated above.
Firstly, the arrangement lacks a complete identity between the contributors and participators. Till the stage of generation of surplus funds, the setup resembled that of a mutuality; the flow of money, to and fro, was maintained within the closed circuit formed by the banks and the club, and to that extent, nobody who was not privy to this mutuality, benefited from the arrangement. However, as soon as these funds were placed in fixed deposits with banks, the closed flow of funds between the banks and the club suffered from deflections due to exposure to commercial banking operations. During the course of their banking business, the member banks used such deposits to advance loans to their clients. Hence, in the present case, with the funds of the mutuality, member banks engaged in commercial operations with third parties outside of the mutuality, rupturing the 'privity of mutuality', and consequently, violating the one to one identity between the contributors and participators as mandated by the first condition. Thus, in the case before us the first condition for a claim of mutuality is not satisfied.
As aforesaid, the second condition demands that to claim an exemption from tax on the principle of mutuality, treatment of the excess funds must be in furtherance of the object of the club, which is not the case here. In the instant case, the surplus funds were not used for any specific service, infrastructure, maintenance or for any other direct benefit for the member of the club. These were taken out of mutuality when the member banks placed the same at the disposal of third parties, thus, initiating an independent contract between the bank and the clients of the bank, a third party, not privy to the mutuality. This contract lacked the degree of proximity between the club and its member, which may in a distant and indirect way benefit the club, nonetheless, it cannot be categorized as an activity of the club in pursuit of its objectives. It needs little emphasis that the second condition postulates a direct step with direct benefits to the functioning of the club. For the sake of argument, one may draw remote connections with the most brazen commercial activities to a club's functioning. However, such is not the design of the second condition. Therefore, it stands violated.
The facts at hand also fail to satisfy the third condition of the mutuality principle i.e. the impossibility that contributors should derive profits from contributions made by themselves to a fund which could only be expended or returned to themselves. This principle requires that the funds must be returned to the contributors as well as expended solely on the contributors. True, that in the present case, the funds do return to the club. However, before that, they are expended on non- members i.e. the clients of the bank. Banks generate revenue by paying a lower rate of interest to club-assessee, that makes deposits with them, and then loan out the deposited amounts at a higher rate of interest to third parties. This loaning out of funds of the club by banks to outsiders for commercial reasons, in our opinion, snaps the link of mutuality and thus, breaches the third condition.
There is nothing on record which shows that the banks made separate and special provisions for the funds that came from the club, or that they did not loan them out. Therefore, clearly, the club did not give, or get, the treatment a club gets
from its members; the interaction between them clearly reflected one between a bank and its client. This directly contravenes the third condition as elucidated in Styles (Surveyor of Taxes) and Kumbakonam Mutual Benefit Fund Ltd. cases (supra). Rowlatt J., in our opinion, correctly points out that if profits are distributed to shareholders as shareholders, the principle of mutuality is not satisfied. In Thomas (supra), at pp. 822-823, he observed thus : "But a company can make a profit out of its members as customers, although its range of customers is limited to its shareholders. If a railway company makes a profit by carrying its shareholders, or if a trading company, by trading with the shareholders - even if it limited to trading with them - makes a profit, that profit belongs to the shareholders, in a sense, but it belongs to them qua shareholders. It does not come back to them as purchasers or customers. It comes back to them as shareholders, upon their shares. Where all that a company does is to collect money from a certain number of people - it does not matter whether they are called members of the company, or participating policy holders - and apply it for the benefit of those same people, not as shareholders in the company, but as the people who subscribed it, then, as I understand the New York case, there is no profit. If the people were to do the thing for themselves, there would be no profit, and the fact that they incorporate a legal entity to do it for them makes no difference, there is still no profit. This is not because the entity of the company is to be disregarded, it is because there is no profit, the money being simply collected from those people and handed back to them, not in the character of shareholders, but in the character of those who have paid it. That, as I understand it, is the effect of the decision in the New York case." (Emphasis supplied)
In the present case, the interest accrues on the surplus deposited by the club like in the case of any other deposit made by an account holder with the bank.
An almost similar issue arose in Kumbakonam Mutual Benefit Fund Ltd. case (supra). The facts in that case were that the assessee, namely, Kumbakonam Mutual Benefit Fund Ltd., was an incorporated company limited by shares. Since 1938, the nominal capital of the assessee was Rs.33,00,000/- divided into shares of Rs.1/- each. It carried on banking business restricted to its shareholders, i.e., the shareholders were entitled to participate in its various recurring deposit schemes or obtain loans on security. Recurring deposits were obtained from members for fixed amounts to be contributed monthly by them for a fixed number of months as stipulated at the end of which a fixed amount was returned to them according to published tables. The amount so returned, covered the compound interest of the period. These recurring deposits constituted the main source of funds of the assessee for advancing loans. Such loans were restricted only to members who had, however, to offer substantial security therefor, by way of either the paid up value of their recurring deposits, if any, or immovable properties within a particular district. Out of the interest realised by the assessee on the loans which constituted its main income, interest on the recurring deposits aforesaid was paid as also all the other outgoings and expenses of management and the balance amount was divided among the members pro rata according to their share-holdings after making provision for reserves, etc., as required by the Memorandum or Articles aforesaid. It was not necessary for the shareholders, who were entitled to participate in the profits to either take loans or make recurring deposits.
On these facts, as already noted, the Court distinguished Styles (Surveyor of Taxes) case (supra) and opined that the position of the assessee was no different from an ordinary bank except that it lent money and received deposits from its shareholders. This did not by itself make its income any less income from business. In our opinion, the ratio of the said decision is on all fours to the facts at hand. The interest earned by the assessee even from the member banks on the surplus funds deposited with them had the taint of commerciality, fatal to the principle of mutuality.
We may add that the assessee is already availing the benefit of the doctrine of mutuality in respect of the surplus amount received as contributions or price for some of the facilities availed by its members, before it is deposited with the bank. This surplus amount was not treated as income; since it was the residue of the collections left behind with the club. A façade of a club cannot be constructed over commercial transactions to avoid liability to tax. Such setups cannot be permitted to claim double benefit of mutuality. We feel that the present case is a clear instance of what this Court had cautioned against in Bankipur Club (supra), when it said: "… if the object of the assessee company claiming to be a "mutual concern" or "club", is to carry on a particular business and money is realised both from the members and from non-members, for the same consideration by giving the same or similar facilities to all alike in respect of the one and the same business carried on by it, the dealings as a whole disclose the same profit earning motive and are alike tainted with commerciality. In other words, the activity carried on by the assessee in such cases, claiming to be a "mutual concern" or Members' club" is a trade or an adventure in the nature of trade and the transactions entered into with the members or non- members alike is a trade/business/transaction and the resultant surplus is certainly profit - income liable to tax. We should also state, that "at what point, does the relationship of mutuality end and that of trading begin" is a difficult and vexed question. A host of factors may have to be considered to arrive at a conclusion. "Whether or not the persons dealing with each other, is a "mutual club" or carrying on a trading activity or an adventure in the nature of trade" is largely a question of fact [Wilcock's case - 9 Tax Cases 111, (132) C.A. (1925) (1) KB 30 at 44 and 45]." (Emphasis supplied) 33. In our opinion, unlike the aforesaid surplus amount itself, which is exempt from tax under the doctrine of mutuality, the amount of interest earned by the assessee from the afore-noted
four banks will not fall within the ambit of the mutuality principle and will therefore, be exigible to Income-Tax in the hands of the assessee-club. 34. In light of the afore-going discussion, these appeals are bereft of any merit and are thus, liable to be dismissed. Accordingly, we dismiss all the appeals with costs.” 5. Being so, we do not find any infirmity in the order of CIT(Appeals) and the same is confirmed.
However, the ld. AR brought to our notice that the AO while taxing the interest income under the head income from other sources considered the opening balance of Rs.12,91,940 as relating to assessment year under consideration. In our opinion, the total interest receipt by the assessee during the year, as seen from the PB page 3, is Rs.71,36,588. Out of this, reversal of interest accrued and not due during the year was worked out to Rs.2,22,098 and the net interest is Rs.69,14,490. However, the AO taxed Rs.82,06,430 which is the total statement of ledger account as interest income. In our opinion, the AO should consider the total interest credited to the assessment year during the year under consideration which is at Rs.71,36,588 as the assessee is following mercantile system of accounting. The AO is directed accordingly.
In the result, the appeal by the assessee is partly allowed.
Pronounced in the open court on this 21st day of February, 2022.