Recently, the Mumbai bench of the Income-tax Appellate Tribunal held that the payment received by the taxpayer company towards the sale of copyright article does not amount to royalty within the provisions of Article 12(3) of the India-USA tax treaty (tax treaty).
The argument that section 90 & 91 are confined to USA Federal taxes and not to USA State taxes and that therefore the bar in s. 40(a)(ii) does not apply to USA State taxes is not acceptable because any payment of income-tax is an application of income as held in Inder Singh Gill 47 ITR 284. Further, the scheme of ss. 90 & 91 does not discriminate between Federal taxes and State taxes and though the India-USA DTAA confines the credit only to Federal taxes, the assessee will be entitled to relief u/s 91 in respect of both taxes as that will be more beneficial to the assessee vis-à-vis tax credit under DTAA. Consequently, the bar against deduction in s. 40(a)(ii) will apply to USA State taxes as well though the assessee will be entitled to credit in respect of USA State taxes.
As a pawnee/pledgee, the assessee does not have absolute rights over the shares. He could sell the security in a manner contemplated by law. In case the proceeds were greater than the amount due to him, he had to pay the surplus to the pawnor.
Commission paid to agents for services rendered outside India is not chargeable to tax in India and there is no obligation to deduct tax u/s 195. As Agent was not a performer, his income was not covered under Article 18 of the DTAA but was covered by Article 7 and as the services were rendered outside India and there was no PE, the same was not assessable to tax in India.
It was held by ITAT, Mumbai that computer software when put into a media and sold becomes goods like any other audio cassette or painting on canvass or book. Accordingly, the amount paid by taxpayer towards purchase of such computer software from a Singapore company cannot be treated as royalty as per the India-Singapore tax treaty (tax treaty).
Once the payment of ‘off-the shelf software’ held not to be chargeable to tax as a royalty on the basis of the certificate obtained from a chartered accountant, no penalty and interest can be levied on the grounds that the assessee did not take prior approval of the assessing officer under section 195(2) of the Act.
Mumbai Income-tax Appellate Tribunal in the case of M/s. Goldcrest Exports v. ITO held that compensation payable for breach of contract to a foreign company would not be taxable in the hands of the foreign company in the absence of a permanent establishment of the foreign company in India. The Tribunal further held that interest included in compensation merges with and partakes the character of compensation itself, and hence, would not be taxable under the tax treaty between India and UK . Therefore, deduction claimed by the assessee for compensation including interest cannot be disallowed on account of non-withholding of taxes therefrom.
Recently, the Mumbai bench of the Income-tax Appellate Tribunal (the Tribunal) in the case of Kotak Mahindra Bank Ltd. v. ACIT (2010-TII-ITAT-MUM-INTL) dealt with the issue of whether passing of an order by the AO is necessary for filing an appeal before the Commissioner of Income-tax (Appeals) [CIT(A)] under section 248 of the Income-tax Act, 1961 (the Act) for a declaration that no tax was deductible on such income. The Tribunal held that Section 248 of the Act does not require any order being passed by the AO as a condition precedent for filing an appeal before CIT(A) . Further, the taxpayer also fulfilled all the necessary conditions required by the provision of the Act. Therefore, the taxpayer was right in filing an appeal before the CIT (A).
ADIT v. Reliance Infocomm Ltd. – It is held that the assessee would be entitled to interest on the refund under the provisions of clause (b) of section 244A(1) of the Income-tax Act, 1961 if the refund became due under an order passed in any appeal or any other proceeding, as referred to in section 240 of the Act.
The taxpayer, a manufacturer and exporter of chemicals had more than 97.5 percent of its sales to its associated enterprise (“AE”). It benchmarked the sales to AEs under the Comparable Uncontrolled Price (“CUP”) method based on the average price charged by the AEs to the customers. The Revenue observed that the non-AEs who purchased the chemicals paid a higher price and adopted the price charged to the non-AEs as the CUP. The taxpayer stated that the AEs operated in the insulation industry and that the non-AEs were in the aerospace sector, which also resulted in the difference in pricing. It also contended that the AE came into existence for the reason that its ultimate customers required long term warranties on the product and were more comfortable dealing with an American firm than directly with the taxpayer. It was also pointed out that the ALP determined by the Revenue turned out to be higher than even the price ultimately charged to the buyers by the AEs. It also stated that the sale to non-AEs were in small quantities and non-recurrent, which cannot be compared directly with the sales to the AEs. However, the Revenue rejected taxpayer’s contentions after considering various aspects concerning the comparability of sales to non-AEs including differences in turnover, quantity, customer profiles and geography. On appeal, the Tribunal accepted the contentions of the taxpayer and ruled that there was no case for the Revenue in making the adjustments and accordingly, the sales to the AEs were held to be at arm’s length.
