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DATE: (Date of pronouncement)
DATE: April 30, 2013 (Date of publication)
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The argument that the foreign AE should be selected as the tested party and the profit earned by the foreign AE from outside comparables should be compared with the price charged by the assessee from the AE to determine whether they are at ALP is not acceptable because under the scheme of s. 92C, the profit actually realized by the Indian assessee from the transaction with its foreign AE has to be compared with that of the comparables. There is no question of substituting the profit realized by the Indian enterprise from its foreign AE with the profit realized by the foreign AE from the ultimate customers for the purposes of determining the ALP of the international transaction of the Indian enterprise with its foreign AE. The scope of TP adjustment under the Indian taxation law is limited to transaction between the assessee and its foreign AE. The contention that the profit earned by the foreign AE should be substituted for the profit of the comparables patently unacceptable. The fact that this may be permissible under the US and UK Regulations is irrelevant

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DATE: (Date of pronouncement)
DATE: April 29, 2013 (Date of publication)
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In certain Tribunal decisions, various reasons have been given for applying the turnover filter for comparison of margins such as economy of scale, greater bargaining power, more skilled employees and higher risk taking capabilities in cases of high turnover companies, which increase the margins with rise in turnover. However, in these decisions, no detailed examination has been made as to how these factors increase the profitability with rising turnover. The concept of economy of scale is relevant to manufacturing concerns, which have high fixed assets and, therefore, with the rise in volume, cost per unit of the product decreases, which is the reason of increase in margin as scale of operations goes up because with the same fixed cost there is more output when the turnover is high. The same is not true in case of service companies, which do not require high fixed assets. In these cases employees are the main assets, who in the case of the assessee are software engineers, who are recruited from project to project depending upon the requirement. The revenue in these cases is directly related to manpower utilized. With rise in volume cost goes up proportionately. Therefore, the concept of economy of scale cannot be applied to service oriented companies. On facts, it is shown by the department that in the case of the comparables selected by the assessee, there is no linear relationship between margin and turnover and that that the margin has come down with the rise in turnover in some cases. Such detailed study was not available before the various Benches of the Tribunal which have applied the turnover filter and consequently those decisions cannot be followed

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DATE: (Date of pronouncement)
DATE: April 26, 2013 (Date of publication)
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S. 144C(8) empowers the DRP not only to confirm or reduce the variation proposed in the draft order to the benefit of the assessee but also to enhance it to the prejudice of the assessee. This power of enhancement which is impliedly embedded in the matter of issuing directions, due to the use of expression `as it thinks fit’ in s. 144C(5) is expressly set out in s. 144C(8). If the DRP reaches the conclusion that the TPO erred in determining the ALP correctly, warranting further adjustment, the assessee, objecting to the variation in the income due to the order of the TPO, may land in difficulty, and end up with the enhancement of variation. But, for the DRP to exercise its power there has to be some variation proposed in the draft order. The Explanation to s. 144C(8) inserted by the Finance Act, 2012 with retrospective effect from 01.04.2009 has widened the DRP’s power of enhancement to all the matters arising out of the assessment proceedings irrespective of whether they were raised or not by the assessee. With this amplification of the power, even the matters not agitated by the assessee before the DRP can also be considered for the purposes of enhancement. Accordingly, in principle, the DRP was entitled to embark upon the question of enhancement of the TP adjustments. However, on facts as the DRP did not give reasonable opportunity to the assessee, the matter has to be remanded to it for fresh consideration

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DATE: (Date of pronouncement)
DATE: April 25, 2013 (Date of publication)
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The Tribunal was wrong in holding that if one profit level indicator of a comparable, out of a set of comparables, is lower than the profit level indicator of the taxpayer, then the transaction reported by the taxpayer is at an arm’s length price and there is no need to take the arithmetical mean. The proviso to s. 92C(2) is explicit that where more than one price is determined by most appropriate method, the arm’s length price shall be taken to be the arithmetical mean of such prices. The Tribunal was also wrong in the finding that unless and until the comparables drawn by the taxpayer were rejected, a fresh search by the TPO could not be conducted because s. 92C (3) which stipulates four situations where under the AO/ TPO may proceed to determine the ALP in relation to an international transaction. If any one of those four conditions is satisfied, it would be open to the AO/ TPO to proceed to determine the ALP price. Also, the question of applying OECD guidelines does not arise at all because there are specific provisions of Rule 10B (2) & (3) and the first proviso to s. 92C(2) which apply. The Tribunal was also not right in reducing the list of comparables to merely four. Having held that the comparables given by the assessee were to be accepted and those searched by the TPO were to be rejected, the only option then left to the Tribunal was to derive the arithmetical mean of the profit level indicators of the comparables which were accepted by it. It erred in selecting only one profit level indicator out of a set of profit level indicators. However, on facts this make no difference because even if the arithmetical mean of the comparables as accepted by the Tribunal are taken into account, the profit level indicator would be less than 6.99 % which is the profit level indicator of the assessee

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DATE: (Date of pronouncement)
DATE: April 25, 2013 (Date of publication)
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A mere mistake in making of a claim in the return of income would not ipso facto reflect concealment or furnishing of inaccurate particulars of income in terms of s. 271(1)(c). The wrong claim of depreciation cannot be said to be made with an intention to evade taxes in as much as even after the disallowance of depreciation, the resultant income of the assessee remains a loss. The assessee had been incurring losses since the year 2003 due to the market forces. Considering the entirety of circumstances, the claim on account of depreciation was a mistake, and did not invite the provisions of s. 271(1)(c)

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DATE: (Date of pronouncement)
DATE: April 23, 2013 (Date of publication)
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It is but evident that the department has failed to discharge its legal obligation in not refunding the seized amount. The argument of the department that unless a direction is issued, a speaking order shall not be passed on the application for refund of the amount due to him is not appreciated. It shows that the officers of the Income-tax Department are shirking their responsibilities. Speedy and affordable justice is the requirement of the day. But it cannot be achieved until the executive including tax-man discharge their duties faithfully honestly within the four corners of law. The revenue official failed to take any decision right or wrong on the refund application filed by the assessee and passed on the buck on the Court. Time has come for the heads of the departments to keep a strict vigil on such shirkers and to fix their responsibility. While it is no doubt true that collection of revenue is a serious matter for the State -and the bounden duty of the authorities functioning under the Act is to implement the provisions of the Act, there should be safety and assurance to an honest tax-payer. An honest tax-payer should not be subjected to unnecessary harassment and an action not warranted in law, which can be of very serious consequence to the tax-payer if is allowed to remain without correction, such harassment and browbeating of an honest tax-payer will otherwise drive even such honest tax-payers to become cynical and lead to a situation where taxpayers will get a feeling that paying taxes honestly is not a worthwhile exercise; that the tax authorities are a menace to the society rather than simply being representatives of the State for enforcing the tax provisions. The department shall pay costs of Rs. 15,000 to the assessee (Sandik Asia 280 ITR 643 (SC), Gujrat Flouro Chemicals 348 ITR 319 & Raghavendra Sherrigar (2005) 1425 STC 153) followed)

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DATE: (Date of pronouncement)
DATE: April 23, 2013 (Date of publication)
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If the audit party brings certain aspects to the notice of the AO, he is entitled to reopen the assessment after forming his own belief. However, if the AO acts under compulsion of the audit party and not independently, the action of re-opening would be vitiated. On facts, it is clearly established that the AO was under compulsion from the audit party to issue notice for reopening because after the audit party brought the controversial issue to the notice of the AO, he did not agreed to the proposal for re-examination of the issue and wrote a letter and gave elaborate reasons why the assessment order was correct. The s. 148 notice was issued only after the Revenue Audit wrote to the CIT reiterating its stand that income had escaped assessment. Consequently, the s. 148 notice had to be quashed (Cadila Healthcare 65 DTR (Guj) 385 followed; P.V.S Beedies 237 ITR 13 (SC) referred)

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DATE: (Date of pronouncement)
DATE: April 22, 2013 (Date of publication)
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The assessee’s argument that the non-charging of interest on the working capital advances to AEs from whom the assessee was getting good business was justified by commercial considerations and that no transfer pricing adjustment is warranted is not acceptable because the existence or non existence of commercial consideration between the assessee and the AEs is not a required condition for applicability of the TP regulations Further, the advance was not the credit period extended to the AEs in respect of business transactions but was a transaction of advancing loans to the AEs which falls under the ambit of “international transaction” u/s 92B. In principle, the DRP is justified in its view that the ALP should be determined on the basis of the interest rate that would have been earned by the assessee by advancing loans to an unrelated third party (in India) such as a Fixed Deposit with the Bank. However, since LIBOR has been accepted by the Tribunal in other cases, the ALP should be determined on the basis of LIBOR + 2% (Siva Industries 59 DTR 182 (Che), Tech Mahindra 46 SOT 141 (Mum) & Tata Autocomp Systems 73 DTR 220 (Mum) referred)

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DATE: (Date of pronouncement)
DATE: April 19, 2013 (Date of publication)
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The India-France DTAA does not say anything about inclusion of surcharge and education cess for the purpose of deduction of tax at source. Therefore, there is an apparent conflict between the Income-tax Act and the DTAA between the two sovereign countries with regard to deduction of tax at source on surcharge and education cess. U/s 90(2) if the provisions of the DTAA are more beneficial to the taxpayer, the DTAA prevails over the Act. Since the DTAA is silent about the surcharge and education cess for the purpose of deduction of tax at source, the taxpayer may take advantage of that provision in the DTAA for deduction of tax

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DATE: (Date of pronouncement)
DATE: April 18, 2013 (Date of publication)
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If the eligible unit has no profit, the loss & depreciation of the eligible unit is entitled to be set-off against the other income. However, despite such set-off, the loss and depreciation has to be aggregated and notionally carried forward for set-off against the future profits of the eligible unit