Case Law Details
The applicant’s counsel submitted that an item of income can be said to have been dealt with in an article of the Treaty only if it defines its scope as well as allocates the right to tax such income between the two Contracting States. Mere exclusion of shipping business profits from article 7 does not amount to dealing with that item of income. We find it difficult to accept this contention. Allocation of taxing right to the source State can well be done by such a process of exclusion. There is no particular manner or methodology of achieving that result.
The expression ‘dealt with’ does not necessarily mean that there should be a detailed or elaborate treatment of the subject10. Clearly, therefore, the income from consultancy services, which cannot be taxed under article 7, 12 or 14 because conditions laid down therein are not satisfied, cannot be taxed under article 23 either. It is also only elementary that when recipient of an income does not have the primary tax liability in respect of an income, the payer cannot have vicarious tax withholding liability either. This position is independent of the payer having moved an application under section 195 or not, or on the payer or the payee having obtained an advance ruling in their favour or not. The law is now very well settled in this regard by Hon’ble Supreme Court’s judgment in the case of GE India Technology Centre Pvt Ltd Vs CIT (supra) wherein Their Lordships have categorically held that, “where a person responsible for deduction is fairly certain, then he can make his own determination as to whether the tax was deductible at source and, if so, what should be the amount thereof”.
INCOME TAX APPELLATE TRIBUNAL,KOLKATA
I.T.A. No.: 1412/Kol/2011 -Assessment year: 2008-09
DCIT Vs. Andaman Sea Food Pvt Ltd
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