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Scrip-Wise Reporting for Shares Eligible for Grandfathering

Scrip-Wise Reporting for Shares Eligible for Grandfathering


Section 112A, The Grandfathering Rule, Long Term Capital Gains, and tons of Scrip-Wise reporting. There has been a lot of confusion around this. It’s chaos for the Traders. Investors are facing hardships to gather and provide data. On 26th September, Income Tax India released a notification regarding Scrip-Wise reporting of capital gains. Yes, there is ‘some’ relief. But the question remains – is it enough?

The Press Release for Scrip-Wise Reporting

The IT Department released a notification saying that the Scrip-Wise reporting is NOT required in the ITR Forms for A.Y. 2020-21 for shares/units which are NOT eligible for Grandfathering (under Long Term Capital Gains) i.e. Short Term Capital Gains, Intraday, and F&O.  

What is the Grandfathering Rule in Long Term Capital Gains?

Do your grandfathers need to be involved? No!

What is Section 112A?

Before diving into this rule, we need to talk about Section 112A.

Under Budget 2018, the exemption under Section 10(38) was removed. And a new Section 112A (applicable from AY 2019-20) was introduced with a 10% tax on LTCG in excess of INR 1 lakh in the case of equity shares and equity mutual funds on which STT is paid.

Example: 

Section 10(38)’s removal?

Under Section 10(38) profit on the sale of listed equity shares, equity-oriented mutual funds & units of business trust held for more than a year was exempt from income tax.

This Section was introduced in the Finance Act of 2004 based on the Kelkar Committee report. The motto was to attract investments from Foreign Institutional Investors. Also, since investors paid STT, it provided relief from double taxation to such investors.

But many taxpayers misused the exemption leading to loss of revenue and tax evasion due to abusive practices.

The Grandfathering Rule

Many investors invest in equity markets with an intention to earn tax-free profits in the form of Long Term Capital Gains. Under Section 112A, CBDT introduced the grandfathering rule to ensure that gains up to 31st January 2018 are not taxed. For equity shares and equity mutual funds purchased on or before 31st January 2018 and sold after a year, the Cost of Acquisition would be:

Long Term Capital Gain = Sales Value – Cost of Acquisition (as per grandfathering rule) – Transfer Expenses

Tax Liability = 10% (LTCG – INR 1 lac)

A Simple Example:

  Case I Case II
Purchase Date January 1st, 2018 February 10th, 2018
Purchase Value 2,00,000 2,00,000
Sell Date January 10th, 2020 January 10th, 2020
Sale Value 3,50,000 3,50,000
Grandfathering Rule Applicable? Yes No
Actual Cost* 2,40,000** 2,00,000
LTCG=Sale Value-Actual Cost 1,10,000 1,50,000
Exempt Up to INR 1 lakh Up to INR 1 lakh
Tax Liability 1,10,000-1,00,000=10,000 * 10% = 1,000 1,50,000-1,00,000=50,000 * 10% = 5,000

*Note: Actual Cost is the Cost of Acquisition to calculate capital gains 

**Calculation of Actual Cost using FMV (Case I)

  Condition Amount (INR) Qualifying Amount
Step 1: Higher of:

Value in Step 1
or
Purchase Value
Lower of: 3,50,000 or 2,40,000 2,40,000
Step 2: Higher of:

Value in Step 1
or
Purchase Value
Higher of: 2,40,000 or 2,00,000 2,40,000
  Actual Cost   2,40,000

Note: indexation benefit is not available to stock and equity fund investors.

Reasons for Scrip-Wise Reporting

The grandfathering is allowed by comparing different values such as cost, sale price, and market price for each share/unit (as on January 31st, 2018). In this process, there is a need to capture the scrip-wise details for computing capital gains of these shares/units.

Challenges Faced by Traders and Taxpayers.

While filing capital gains with ITR 2 and ITR 3, individuals have to provide the following details of share sales as on January 31st, 2018:

Also, most brokers don’t provide with FMV of the shares. Moreover, taxpayers need to fill up these details for each item individually. They have to mechanically and accurately file the data. Boy, this can be a hassle in cases where the data is large and the time and data involved are exceptionally huge.

Can’t there be a better way?

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