Dismissing the appeal of the department, Hon’ble Court held that the revision order passed by the Commissioner under section 263 without providing the assessee an opportunity to counter the allegation that it was a conduit company without any substance. In the show-cause notice the Commissioner had faulted the Assessing Officer for not undertaking certain enquiries including verifying whether, (i) the assessee had a permanent establishment in India, (ii) in terms of section 9(1)(vii) of the Act, the income was chargeable as fees for technical services, (iii) tax at source at the rate of 10 per cent. on all the remittances made to the assessee were deducted, (iv) the condition as set out in article 12 of the India-Singapore Double Taxation Avoidance Agreement in regard to taxation of fees for technical services were satisfied, (v) regarding the commercial substance of the assessee in Singapore and (vi) it was a conduit company formed for obtaining the tax benefits under the Double Taxation Avoidance Agreement. These observations were made only for the purposes of calling upon the assessee to show cause why the proceedings not be initiated under section 263 of the Act but, thereafter, the Commissioner had not put the issue regarding treaty shopping to the assessee. The tentative opinion formed by the Commissioner that the assessee was a conduit company for the reasons as articulated in the revision order was not put to the assessee. Hence, the assessee had not been given an opportunity to satisfy the Commissioner regarding such view for the assessment year 2017-2018.(AY. 2017-180)
CIT (IT) v. Zebra Technologies Asia Pacific Pte. Ltd. (2025) 472 ITR 745 (Delhi) (HC)
S. 263 : Commissioner-Revision of orders prejudicial to revenue-Non-resident-AO allowed the claim under India-Singapore DTAA-CITA initiated the revisions proceedings on the ground that the assessee conduit company used for treaty shopping-without putting the allegation in the 263 notice-The assessee has not been heard on the said issue-Revision is bad in law-Appeal of Revenue is dismissed-DTAA-India-Singapore [S.9(1)(vii), 260A, Art. 12]
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