Yoga guru Baba Ramdev’s Patanjali Yogpeeth (a public charitable trust) has won the tax exempted status by The Income-tax Appellate Tribunal (ITAT). The Delhi bench of the ITAT in its order stated that, “the finding of I-T authorities that propagation of yoga by Patanjali Yogpeeth does not qualify as medical relief or imparting of education is not justified.”
In it’s order the ITAT also mentioned that the 2006 amendment in the I-T Act which specifically inserted ‘yoga’ within the definition of ‘charitable purpose’.
The ITAT bench said that Yoga entails providing medical relief and camps also provide education, and that both ‘medical relief ”and ‘imparting education’ fall within the meaning of charitable purpose, entitling the trust to claim I-T exempt status under sections 11 and 12 of the Income Tax Act.
The ITAT in its order also referred to the 2006 amendment made in the I-T Act which specifically inserted ‘yoga’ within the definition of `charitable purpose’.
Earlier, Yoga was not included in charitable purpose which meant that Patanjali Yogpeeth was liable to pay the income tax.
However, an amendment made to the I-T Act, which came into effect on April 1, 2016, has specifically inserted ‘yoga’ within the definition of ‘charitable purpose’.
Vanprasth Ashram Scheme provides accommodation to the people attending the yoga courses and the donation under this scheme includes land with the market price according to authorities is Rs 65 lakh. The ITAT order also asserted that, “Corpus donations are not taxable, even in circumstances where the trust is not eligible for I-T exemption.”
