Madras High Court Rules Interest On Trust's Fixed Deposits Taxable Without Donor Direction For Corpus

A Trust's Taxing Trouble

The Madras High Court has delivered a significant ruling for charitable trusts, holding that interest earned on fixed deposits is taxable as revenue receipt unless donors explicitly direct that such interest be added to the trust's corpus. In a judgment dated 17 August 2026, a Division Bench comprising Chief Justice Sushrut Arvind Dharmadhikari and Justice G. Arul Murugan dismissed an appeal by the St. Joseph’s Development Trust, a public charitable trust registered under Section 12AA of the Income Tax Act, 1961.

The Micro-Credit Conundrum

The dispute arose from the Assessment Year 2017-18, when the trust filed a 'nil' income return. Scrutiny by the Assessing Officer revealed that the trust had received ₹1.81 crore as interest on fixed deposits. While ₹87.44 lakh was credited to the income and expenditure account, the remaining ₹94.39 lakh—along with other interest and income totalling ₹94.66 lakh—was directly credited to the balance sheet under the head "SJDT Sustainable Fund". The trust argued that these funds originated from Self-Help Groups (SHGs) under micro-credit programmes and foreign donors such as Secours Catholique, CBM, and Kinder Not Hilfe. The trust contended it acted merely as a custodian, obligated to return the principal and interest to the groups, and therefore the interest did not constitute taxable income.

The Assessing Officer rejected this claim, treating the entire ₹94.66 lakh as revenue income. The National Faceless Appeal Centre and the Income Tax Appellate Tribunal, Chennai, both upheld the addition, leading to the present appeal under Section 260A of the Act.

Custodian or Owner? The Donor Direction Debate

The trust’s central argument rested on Section 11(1)(d) of the Income Tax Act, which exempts voluntary contributions made with a specific written direction from the donor that they shall form part of the trust’s corpus. The trust pointed to foreign donor letters that permitted it to distribute refunded funds to SHGs and claimed that the interest on these funds was itself held on behalf of the groups. However, the Revenue countered that no original donation letter contained an explicit direction that bank interest earned on fixed deposits must automatically form part of the trust's corpus.

The court distinguished the Kerala High Court’s decision in CIT (Exemptions) v. Mata Amrithanandamayi Math , where donors had issued explicit written instructions that interest on specific contributions be added back to the corpus . In stark contrast, the court observed: "In the case at hand, no such express direction issued by the donor exists. In the absence of an explicit direction from the donor at the time of contribution, interest earned on bank deposits constitutes revenue receipt and must be routed through the Income and Expenditure Account."

The Missing Link: Explicit Donor Instructions

The court elaborated that Section 11(1)(d) requires an express direction at the time of the contribution. The trust’s reliance on the Delhi High Court’s judgment in Director of Income Tax v. Society for Development Alternatives was also misplaced. In Society for Development Alternatives, the funds were unspent project grants held under strict agency terms returnable to donors. Here, the interest was generated from fixed deposits held in the trust’s own name, and the trust was free to use it for its charitable objects. The court noted: "Any subsequent obligation or agreement to spend or allocate those funds for SHGs constitutes an application of income , not a diversion at source ."

The court delivered another blow to the trust’s custodian argument by highlighting a contradiction: the trust had claimed Tax Deducted at Source (TDS) credit of ₹16.45 lakh on the total interest income. "The appellant trust cannot claim tax credit for TDS on interest income, while simultaneously excluding the underlying interest from its gross revenue receipts ," the judges observed.

No Shield in Earlier Precedent or Past Practice

The trust had argued that the Assessing Officer should have followed a reassessment order for AY 2009-10 that treated similar interest differently. The court rejected this, holding that each assessment year is a separate unit and the Revenue is not bound by an earlier erroneous treatment.

Verdict: Interest Income is Revenue, Taxable

Upholding the ITAT’s order, the court concluded: "the Tribunal correctly held that the interest income of Rs.94,66,848/- earned on bank fixed deposits constitutes taxable revenue receipt . It does not qualify for exemption under Section 11(1)(d) of the Act due to the absence of specific donor directions."

The appeal was dismissed with no order as to costs. The decision serves as a stark reminder for charitable trusts: to keep interest income tax-exempt, they must secure explicit written directives from donors that such interest forms part of the trust's corpus. Absent that, the interest is taxed as ordinary revenue.