Case Law Details
In re Workplace Options India Pvt Ltd (GST AAAR Karnataka)
The Appellant has argued before us that determination of liability to pay tax on any goods or services is a matter which is well within the ambit of an advance ruling and if the said determination involves examining the place of supply, then the same also falls within the scope of clause (e) of Section 97(2) of the CGST Act. They have strongly relied on the Kerala High Court decision in this regard as well as a number of advance rulings passed by the lower Authority and by Advance Ruling Authorities in other parts of the country to substantiate their claim that examining the place of supply provisions is not outside the ambit of an advance ruling. We have gone through all the relied upon decisions and we find that in all decisions relied upon (including the case of Sutherland Mortgage Services Inc), the determination of place of supply was either with respect to export of goods or services made by the applicants therein or with respect to supplies made by the applicants therein. In other words, in all the cases relied upon by the Appellant, the applicants for advance ruling were suppliers of the goods or services and the place of supply with respect to the supply made by the applicants therein was being determined. Even in the case before the Kerala High Court, the petitioner was an exporter of service and had sought for an advance ruling.
The case before us is not on the same footing. Here the Appellant is the recipient of service and is seeking a ruling on the tax liability of a transaction made by the supplier of service. We have already made it clear that the Authority is not competent to determine the classification of a service supplied by the third party who is not the applicant seeking the ruling. Therefore, the place of supply of the transaction undertaken by Beacon US to the Appellant also cannot be determined by the Authority. We find that the decision of the Kerala High Court in the case of Sutherland Mortgage Services Inc as well as the other decisions relied upon by the Appellant do not come to their assistance.
We do not hesitate to state that M/s Beacon, US is well within its rights to seek an advance ruling whether the service supplied by them to M/s Workplace Options India Pvt Ltd is liable to tax and if so whether the tax is to be paid by the latter under reverse charge treating it as an import of service. As regards this appeal, we hold that the lower Authority was correct in dismissing the application on the grounds of lack of jurisdiction.
We uphold theorder No. KAR ADRG 52/2021 dated 29/10/2021 passed by the Advance Ruling Authority and the appeal filed by the Appellant M/s. Workplace Options India Pvt Ltd, stands dismissed on all accounts.
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