The Delhi Bench of the Income – tax Appellate Tribunal (Delhi Tribunal), in the case of Vertex Customer Services (India) Pvt. Ltd. (the taxpayer) held that exclusion of provision of doubtful debts from the operating expenses being a debatable issue and considering full disclosure made by the taxpayer; the taxpayer could not be held liable for penalty.
Recently, the Himachal Pradesh High Court in the case of CIT v. Maggronic Devices Pvt. Ltd. [2009-TIOL-568-HC-HP-IT] held that payment made by the taxpayer to a Singapore company for outright purchase of plant and product knowhow cannot be considered as ‘Royalty’ within the provisions of the Income-tax Act, 1961. Accordingly, no tax was required to be deducted while making payment to the Singapore company for acquiring such know-how outside India.