The concurrent power to impose tax has been provided under:

Question

While Section 245C of the Income Tax Act, 1961 provides that the disclosures as to income “not disclosed before the Assessing Officer” must accompany the application filed before the Settlement Commission, Section 245H provides that if the assessee has cooperated with the Settlement Commission and has made “full and true disclosure of his income”, the Settlement Commission may grant immunity from prosecution and penalty. It is the case of the Revenue that Section 245H (1) cannot be read in isolation as Section 245C is embedded in 245H(1), and hence, both the Sections must be read harmoniously. That when so read, the requirement under Section 245H would be that disclosure of income “not disclosed before the Assessing Officer” must be made before the Commission
In this regard, it is observed that even if the pre-conditions prescribed under Section 245C are to be read into Section 245H, it cannot be said that in every case, the material “disclosed” by the assessee before the Commission must be something apart from what was discovered by the Assessing Officer. Section 245C read with Section 245H only contemplates full and true disclosure of income to be made before the Settlement Commission, regardless of the disclosures or discoveries made before/by the Assessing Officer. It is to be noted that the Order passed by Assessing Officer based on any discovery made, is not the final word, for, it is appealable. However, the assessee may accept the liability, in whole or in part, as determined in the assessment order. In such a case, the assessee may approach the Settlement Commission making ‘full and true disclosure’ of his income and the way such income has been derived. Such a disclosure may also include the income discovered by the Assessing Officer.
[Extracted with edits from the decision of the Supreme Court in Kotak Mahindra Bank Ltd. v. Commissioner of Income Tax, Bangalore, 2023 LiveLaw (SC) 822, dated September 25, 2023].

Answer 1

Before 2017, India's constitutional scheme kept the power to tax strictly divided. The Union List had its own separate taxing entries such as customs duty and excise duty, and the State List had its own, such as sales tax and entry tax. No entry in either list was shared, and the Concurrent List did not carry a general taxing entry at all, so there was never a joint tax that both Parliament and a State Legislature could levy on the same transaction.

The introduction of the Goods and Services Tax changed this structure. The 101st Amendment Act, 2016 inserted a new Article 246A, which for the first time gives Parliament and every State Legislature the power to make laws imposing GST on the same supply of goods or services, subject to inter-state supply being taxed only by Parliament under Article 269A. This is why Article 246A, not the general Article 246 or the Concurrent List, is described as creating the concurrent power to tax.

Article 246 remains the general umbrella provision distributing legislative subjects across the three lists, and Article 307 is unrelated, dealing instead with trade and commerce across state borders.

The correct answer is Article 246A.

The concurrent power to impose tax has been provided under:

The Correct Option is D

Solution and Explanation

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