Inland haulage charges are in the nature of income from operations of ships in international traffic and not taxable in India per Article 8 of the India-Belgium tax treaty

DDIT M/s. Vodafone Essar Infrastructure Limited. Safmarine Container Lines NV, ITA No. 3073/Mum/10 (Mumbai ITAT)

Facts :-Assessee, a company incorporated in Belgium, is engaged in the business of operations of ships in international traffic.During the course of scrutiny assessment proceedings, the Assessing Officer (AO), inter alia, noticed that the assessee is collecting inland haulage charges, from its customers, in respect of goods being transported from the places where containers are stuffed, inland container depots (ICD), to the port where these goods are to be loaded in the ships for international traffic. For example, if the shipping company picks up export consignments, from say New Delhi for shipment to Mombasa, the assessee bills the exporter of such goods inland haulage charges from New Delhi to Mumbai, and also bills the exporter ocean freight from Mumbai to Mombasa through a consolidated single invoice.The amount billed for inland haulage charges included following services (i) placement of empty containers from empty yards to stuffing points, (ii) providing labour for all loading, carting and stuffing cargo, (iii) providing forklift and other equipment for carting and stuffing, (iv) movement of loaded containers from container freight station to loading port, (v) providing cargo inspection to surveyors, and (vi) transportation and movement of containers from inland container depot (ICD) to loading port (JNPT) in Mumbai.The AO was of the view that in such a case, the income from inland haulage charges, i.e. transportation cost of goods from New Delhi to Mumbai, should be taxed in India.