57th GST Council Meeting – Major Recommendations and Key GST 2.0 Reforms The 57th meeting of the Goods and Services Tax (GST) Council, chaired by Union Finance Minister Smt. Nirmala Sitharaman, was held at Bharat Mandapam, New Delhi, on 8 October 2026. The meeting marked an important shift in the GST reform journey. Instead of…

SaaS Subscription Fee Is Not “Royalty” Merely Because Technology Does the Work   ITAT Mumbai holds that access to a communication platform does not amount to use of a “process” under Section 9(1)(vi) or Article 12(3) of the India–Ireland DTAA In the digital economy, almost everything happens through a “process”. Messages are routed, searches are…

Buying Property from an NRI Gets Easier: New PAN-Based TDS Compliance from 1 October 2026     Buying a property from a resident seller is relatively straightforward from a TDS compliance perspective. But when the seller is a non-resident, the paperwork has traditionally been much more complicated. A transaction that may happen only once in…

TDS Returns Can Now Be Filed Directly on TRACES     A major filing change from Q2 of FY 2026-27 makes short TDS returns faster and simpler A significant change is being introduced in the TDS return filing process from Q2 of FY 2026-27. TDS statements can now be filed directly online through the TRACES…

Pleading Benami Can Cost You the Property: Supreme Court’s Important Ruling in Manjula v. D.A. Srinivas When both the alleged real owner and the person in whose name the property stands can lose their rights What happens when a person goes to court claiming that a property legally standing in someone else’s name actually belongs…