The back office operations and software development services carried out by an Indian subsidiary are held to be a fixed place permanent establishment of a Foreign Company. It has also been held that the contract entered into by the foreign company with its clients for providing certain IT-enabled services and then assigning or sub-contracting the same contract to Indian Subsidiary for execution can be said to constitute a business connection in India and profits attributed to the permanent establishment are determined based on the global profits in proportion to Indian assets to global assets.
The ITAT held that the relationship of the Taxpayers with their Indian subsidiary to whom the Taxpayers had sub contracted/ assigned provision of software development and call center services, resulted in a permanent establishment (PE) of the Taxpayers in India under the India-USA Double Taxation Avoidance Agreement (DTAA). The ITAT held that a PE was constituted on account of activities of the subsidiary which effectively resulted in the Taxpayers carrying on their business in India. The ITAT, subject to some adjustments, broadly upheld the approach adopted by the Indian Tax Authority of attributing profits to the PE by allocating the global profits based on a proportion of Indian assets to global assets. The ITAT also held that the conclusions reached in a Mutual Agreement Procedure (MAP) for a particular financial year could form the basis for the Tax Authority to reach a conclusion for other years, if there are no differences in facts for the years.
Recently, the Delhi bench of the Income-tax Appellate Tribunal dealt with the issue of taxability on sale of shares under India-Mauritius tax treaty (tax treaty). The Tribunal asked for either third party evidence or evidence by any government agency either situated in Mauritius or in India to be brought on record to substantiate taxpayer’s claim regarding holding board meetings in Mauritius. The Tribunal held that the documents placed on record needed examination regarding their authenticity and relevance, accordingly restored the case back to the Assessing Officer (AO) to decide the same afresh.
The assessee, a broker in the BSE, disclosed short-term capital gains and long-term capital gains on sale of shares. The AO accepted the LTCG as such though he held that the STCG was assessable as “business profits” on the ground that the assessee was a stock broker & there was large volume and frequency (more than 300) transactions. On appeal, the CIT (A) reversed the AO. On appeal by the department to the Tribunal, HELD dismissing the appeal:
It was held that the offshore supply of equipment, even on a CIF basis, under a composite contract is not taxable in India.
The assessee, a statutory body established under the Chartered Accountants Act 1949 for regulating the profession of Chartered Accountants, obtained exemption u/s 10(23C)(iv) pursuant to a notification issued by the CBDT. The notification provided that the exemption would not apply to profits and gains of business unless the business was incidental to the attainment of the objectives of the assessee and separate books of accounts were maintained.
The Delhi Bench of Income Tax Appellate Tribunal (“the Tribunal”) in its recent ruling in the case of ACIT v. Vedaris Technologies (Pvt.) Ltd [2010-TII-10-ITAT-DEL-TP] has held that selection of comparable uncontrolled transactions (“comparables”) for determining arm’s length price (“ALP”) should be done with reference to Rule 10C(2) of the Income-tax Rules, 1962 (“the Rules”).
In a recent ruling’ , the Delhi Income-tax Appellate Tribunal in the case of McDonald’s (India) Pvt Ltd v. ACIT [ITA No. 3890 (Del) of 2004], has held, on evaluation of available facts, that the old provision of section 92 of the Income-tax Act, 1961 does not apply in case of advertisement expenditure incurred by the resident assessee on behalf of other resident entity.
Recently, the Delhi bench of the Income-tax Appellate Tribunal in the case of M/s Panasonic India Pvt Ltd Vs. Income Tax Office, has upheld the aggregation of transactions where the Functions, Assets &; Risks underlying those transactions are similar. The Tribunal also concluded that reimbursement of advertisement expenses received by a Distributor from its Associated Enterprise (AE) must be treated as operating income for computing profitability of the taxpayer under the Transactional Net Margin Method (TNMM) method.
Recently, the Delhi bench of the Income-tax Appellate Tribunal (the Tribunal) in the case of Rolls Royce Industrial Power Ltd. v. ACIT [2010-TII-139-ITAT-DEL-INTL] (Judgement date 5 October 2010 Assessment Years 1998-99 to 2004-05) held that consideration paid to a foreign company for performance of a works contract of operating and maintaining a power plant cannot be considered as Fees for Technical Services (FTS) both under the Income-tax Act, 1961 (the Act) as well as under India-UK tax treaty (tax treaty). Further, the Tribunal held that the taxing of a foreign company i.e. the taxpayer in a manner which is more burdensome vis-a-vis an Indian company doing identical business in India would lead to discrimination. Accordingly the taxpayer is entitled to protection of Article 26 of the tax treaty and should not be subjected to tax on gross basis, but on net basis. The Tribunal also held that for a correct and harmonious interpretation disallowance under section 44D of the Act would not apply wherever Article 7 of the tax treaty is being applied.
