Due to the misuse of the charity route by some persons the law on the subject of taxation of charitable institutions and trusts has become complicated. The tax professional community and those concerned with looking after and administering charitable institutions will benefit from the exhaustive and well-constructed data base formulated by Rajesh Kadakia, a chartered accountant with rich experience and an analytical mind which he exercises very fruitfully on the subject of charities and direct taxation. All the relevant statutory provisions and available case laws are analyzed in detail and grouped under easy-to-find and appropriate headings and sub-titles. The index and the “Key situations/Issues” will enable all concerned to locate the particular topic or issue on which information and guidance is desired by clicking the appropriate catch words. Topics not generally considered are dealt with in full. For example, the data base very precisely deals with issues such as a) whether repayment of loans by beneficiary-borrowers from the trust is to be treated as income of the trust b) whether application of income for charitable purposes is to be traced to the trust’s exempt or non-exempt income c) scope of the proviso to section 2(15) which casts a shadow on the charitable status of genuine charitable trusts and institutions rendering yeoman service to the community and d) the intricate subject of permitted investments (section 11(5) and 13(1)(d)). The principle emerging from the various decisions has been succinctly stated. A unique feature of the data base is the formulation of over 1600 questions relating to problems which arise in practice and the answers thereto and solutions thereof. The advantage of presenting the available material in data base form is that it makes it possible to refer to, and to guide the enquirer to refer to, cases decided both by the Courts and the Tribunal and reported not only in the ITR, DTR, CTR, Taxmann (High Courts) and ITD, TTJ & SOT (Tribunal) but also in Taxman.com and Tax Sutra! It will also make it possible for the learned author to update the same at regular intervals. The only reservation one can have in respect of data bases is that they provide exercise to one’s fingers as they click along and make it less and less necessary to train one’s mind to store information and knowledge and independently to analyze the plethora of information and data made possible by the achievements of modern technology!