KATHMANDU, Aug 23: The Supreme Court (SC) on Thursday rescheduled its verdict on the Ncell capital gains tax (CGT) assessment case for August 26. This is the third time the apex court deferred its verdict relating to the CGT assessment of Ncell.
A five-member full bench of justices Tej Bahadur KC, Purushottam Bhandari, Dambar Bahadur Shahi, Sushmalata Mathema and Manoj Kumar Sharma is considering the case.
Ncell Private Limited on April 23 had challenged the capital gains tax assessment made by the Large Taxpayers' Office (LTO) at the SC. One of the largest telecommunications companies in the country moved the apex court seeking annulment of the LTO decision two days before the expiry of the seven-day deadline for settling Rs 39 billion as the balance of the CGT assessment including fines and interest. The Ncell maintained that the tax assessment was against the SC verdict handed down by a larger full bench led by Chief Justice Cholendra SJB Rana on February 7.
The court verdict stated that Ncell and its parent company Axiata should pay the CGT and asked the LTO to assess the tax within three months. The LTO had simply transferred the assessed tax from Teliasonera to Ncell and its parent company Axiata. In its petition, the Ncell argued that the LTO's tax assessment violated constitutional rights and is against the SC verdict. Ncell claimed that it was not given any information about the tax assessment nor was it asked for any tax filing before the tax was assessed.