TaxTMI 
TaxTMI 
2016 (12) TMI 1673
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....ing set off of losses of Unit-II against the business income without appreciating the fact that such loss cannot be adjusted against the taxable profits of the assessee and shall be carried forward to be set off against the future profits of such eligible unit only. 2) The learned Commissioner of Income-tax (Appeals) erred in deleting the addition of Rs. 1,76,22,740/- u/s 10A(7) r.w.s. 80IA(10) of the Act without appreciating the fact that the assessee itself in the comparables furnished in its transfer pricing report had show ordinary profits margins to be of 12.01% as against the margin of 26.986% shown for Unit-I. 4. The issue raised by way of ground of appeal No.1 by the Revenue is against setting of losses of one Unit against the business income and the plea of Revenue is that such losses cannot be adjusted against taxable profits of the assessee and has to be carried forward to be set off against future profits of such eligible units only. 5. Briefly, in the facts of the case, the assessee had furnished return of income declaring total income at Rs. 1,10,19,086/-. The assessee for the year under consideration had claimed deduction under section 10A of the Act i....
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....d sum of Rs. 1,76,22,740/- was excluded from eligible profits for the purpose of computation of deduction under section 10A of the Act for Pune Unit-I. 7. In appeal, the CIT(A) following the ratio laid down by Hon'ble Bombay High Court in Hindustan Lever Ltd. Vs. DCIT & UOI reported in 325 ITR 102 (Bom) and in CIT Vs. Black & Veatch Consulting Pvt. Ltd. (2012) 348 ITR 72 (Bom) allowed set off of losses of Pune Unit-II as claimed by the assessee. He further observed that the deduction Chapter VIA, sections 70, 71 and 72 would operate and relief admissible to the assessee even if the assessee does not make any claim for granting such relief in the return of income. In respect of second disallowance made under section 10A(7) r.w.s. 80IA(10) of the Act, the CIT(A) noted the submissions of assessee that arm's length margins could not be considered as ordinary profits because section 10A of the Act was introduced much before introduction of Transfer Pricing Regulations i.e. section 72 of the Act and the claim of assessee that the net margins of 26.99% earned from the software development services was not more than ordinary profits, was accepted by the CIT(A) and the addition made ....
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....djusting any brought forward unabsorbed losses / depreciation, in turn, relied on the ratio laid down by Hon'ble Bombay High Court in CIT Vs. Black & Veatch Consulting (P) Ltd. (supra) and the Pune Bench of Tribunal in M/s. Vishay Components India Pvt. Ltd. Vs. Addl. CIT (supra) had held that the assessee was eligible to claim deduction under section 10A of the Act before adjusting losses of Nagpur Unit. 13. The issue before the Tribunal in assessee's own case for assessment year 2005-06 is at variance with the issue before us in assessment year 2006- 07. The issue before the Tribunal in preceding year was whether the assessee was eligible to claim deduction under section 10A of the Act b efore adjusting losses of Nagpur Unit or after. The Tribunal held that deduction under section 10A of the Act is to be allowed on the profits of eligible unit before adjusting the losses of any other unit. In the facts of the present case, the Assessing Officer has allowed the deduction under section 10A of the Act on the profits of eligible unit and there is no dispute about the same. The issue which arises in the present appeal is whether the losses arising from other eligible units which are....
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....-section (8) and sub-section (10) of section 80-IA shall, so far as may be, apply in relation to the undertaking referred to in this section as they apply for the purposes of the undertaking referred to in section 80-IA." 8. Further, sub-sections (8) and (10) of section 80-IA of the Act referred to in section 10A(7) read as under :- "(8) Where any goods [or services] held for the purposes of the eligible business are transferred to any other business carried on by the assessee, or where any goods [or services] held for the purposes of any other business carried on by the assessee are transferred to the eligible business and, in either case, the consideration, if any, for such transfer as recorded in the accounts of the eligible business does not correspond to the market value of such goods [or services] as on the date of the transfer, then, for the purposes of the deduction under this section, the profits and gains of such eligible business shall be computed as if the transfer, in either case, had been made at the market value of such goods [or services] as on that date : Provided that where, in the opinion of the Assessing Officer, the computation of the....
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....e are more than the ordinary profits which might be expected to arise in such an eligible business. So however, the aforesaid power of the Assessing Officer is subject to the pre-requisites contained in sub-section (10) of section 80-IA of the Act itself. The circumstances in which such a course is available to the Assessing Officer is contained in section 80-IA(10) itself. A perusal of section 10A(7) r.w.s. 80-IA(10) of the Act would show that the two essential conditions are to be established before the Assessing Officer can proceed to disregard the profits declared by the assessee and determine the amount of profits which may reasonably deemed to have been derived from such business. Notably, such conditions are (i) existence of a close connection between the assessee carrying on eligible business and any other person; and, (ii) that the course of business is so arranged that the business transacted produces to the assessee more than the ordinary profits. 11. At the outset, it is to be noted that the opening sentence in section 80- IA(10) of the Act contains the expression - "where it appears to the Assessing Officer that ............". This would show that the onus is ....
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....stifying the invoking of section 80-IA(10) r.w.s. 10A(7) of the Act is on the Revenue based on cogent material. At this point, we may also make a reference to the judgement of the Hon'ble Bombay High Court in the case of CIT vs. M/s Schmetz India Pvt. Ltd. vide Income Tax Appeal No.4508 of 2010 dated 04.09.2012, which is also to the similar effect. In the case before the Hon'ble Bombay High Court assessee was a wholly owned subsidiary of a German Company. It had two divisions - one at Kandla in the Kandla Free Trade Zone, engaged in the manufacture and export of industrial sewing machine needless; and other at Mumbai, engaged in trading in industrial sewing machine needless. The manufacturing division at Kandla exported its entire production of industrial machine needless to its holding company in Germany. For the assessment year 2004-05 assessee declared an income of Rs. 20.54 crores from its manufacturing division at Kandla and claimed 100% deduction u/s 10A of the Act. During the course of the assessment proceedings, Assessing Officer was of the view that abnormal profits had been declared in respect of the Kandla division, only in view of the income therefrom being exempt u/s 1....
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.... holiday u/s 10A of the Act was available for Unit No.I at Pune upto assessment year 2007-08; that for Unit No.II at Pune upto assessment year 2011-12; and, that for Chennai Unit upto assessment year 2009-10. A statement showing operating margins to total cost earned by the assessee from the STPI Units relatable to the software engineering services segment was furnished to show that even after the expiry of the tax holiday period the profits of the Units is higher than the other Units of the assessee. 14. In this context, a reference has also been made to the commercial reasons explained before the Assessing Officer for the high profits earned by the assessee's STPI Unit. From the submissions furnished to the Assessing Officer, which have been reproduced in para 2.6 of the assessment order, it is revealed that reasons were advanced to justify the higher margins of the STPI Units. Firstly, it was contended that there was substantial cost savings in terms of costs on sales, marketing, sale promotion and advertisement because majority of the business in the engineering services segment was with affiliates only. Secondly, it was pointed out that assessee is in the business of ....
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....se it does benefit the Honeywell group as a whole. Since there is a significant public shareholding in the assessee company, it would mean that the any extraordinary benefit passed on by overseas Honeywell group entities to assessee would result in a loss for Honeywell group on an overall basis to the extent of public shareholding in the assessee company. It was, therefore, contended that in such a scenario, it could not be said that there was any arrangement between the assessee and the overseas Honeywell entities to produce higher profits to the assessee. In support of such proposition, reliance has been placed on the decisions of the Mumbai Bench of the Tribunal in the case of ITO vs. Zydus Nycomed Healthcare (ITA Nos.4013/Mum/208, 4206/Mum/2009 and 4343/Mum/2009 dated 31.10.2013). 16. Apart from the aforesaid, it has been vehemently argued that ordinary profits for the purposes of section 10A(7) r.w.s. 80-IA(10) of the Act cannot be computed relying upon the Transfer Pricing documents prepared by the assessee. The Ld. Representative pointed out that having regard to the intention of the Transfer Pricing Provisions, the margins determined under the TNM Method a....
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....s further submitted that the word "arrangement" used in section 80- IA(10) of the Act is to be understood as any agreement with the associated enterprise and in support of the same reliance has been placed on the decision of the Hon'ble Bombay High Court in the case of Bank of India Ltd. vs. Ahmedabad Manufacturing & Calico, (1972) 42 CompCas 211 (BomXDPB-p-42), wherein it has been held as under :- "The word "arrange" has, as one of its meaning, in the Shorter Oxford Dictionary, edition, "to come to an agreement or understanding", and the word "arrangement" has, as its primary meaning, "the action of arranging". As a matter of plain language it would, therefore, follow that the term "arrangement" means any agreement or understanding between the parties concerned." 19. As per the Ld. CIT-DR, since there is an agreement between the assessee and the associated enterprises for Provision of IT enabled engineering/software services, it is to be understood as an "arrangement" within the meaning of section 80-IA(10) of the Act. According to him, the requirements of section 80-IA(10) of the Act are satisfied if there exists an arrangement which leads to production of more ....
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....tion 10A(7) r.w.s. 80-IA(10) of the Act. It was also submitted by him that fact of the assessee being reimbursed the travelling costs, etc. cannot be responsible for assessee's high profit which are not of an ordinary level. The Ld. CIT-DR pointed out that if certain part of the expenditure is being incurred by the other parties then the cost of such expenditure would certainly be reduced from the price charged by the assessee for the services rendered. In any case, it is pointed out that reimbursement of expenses is a profit neutral transaction and does not impact the profitability of the assessee. 22. Before we proceed further, it would be appropriate to examine the scope and intent of the provisions of section 10A(7) r.w.s. 80-IA(10) of the Act. In this context, a reference has been made to the CBDT Circular No.308 dated 29.06.2008 wherein the reasons for introduction of sub-section (7) to section 10A of the Act has been explained. In-particular, reference has been made to the following contents of the Circular :- "The provisions of sub-section (8) and sub-section (9) of section 80-I will also apply in relation to the industrial undertaking referred to in the n....
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....ant and its understanding has to be prefaced by the legislative objective of plugging abuse of the tax concessions granted u/s 10A of the Act by manipulation of profits between associated parties. In other words, the import of the expression "so arranged" has to be read in conjunction with the legislative intent that there should not be any abuse of tax concession by manipulation of profits. Therefore, section 10A(7) r.w.s. 80- IA(10) of the Act can be invoked only where it is shown that the course of business is so arranged which reflects an abuse of tax concession whereby the business transacted between two entities is so arranged, which produces to the assessee more than the ordinary profits which might be expected to arise in such eligible business. The emphasis is to eschew those 'more than the ordinary profits' which are as a result of a business between two closely connected concerns having been arranged with the intent of abuse of the tax concession. Ostensibly, in the present case, the Revenue would have to justify that the course of business between assessee and the associated enterprises has been 'so arranged' which produces to the assessee more than the ordinary profits....
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...., the meaning of the words "so arranged" in section 80-IA(10) of the Act only seeks to ensure that there was an agreement between the assessee and associated enterprise. 25. We have carefully examined the aforesaid contentions of the Ld. CIT-DR. In our considered opinion, the import of the expression "arranged" in section 80-IA(10) of the Act is not to be understood in its plain language but the same has to be understood in the context in which it is placed in the section. Notably, section 80-IA(10) of the Act restricts the plain meaning of the term "arranged" because it is placed between the words "........the course of business between them is so arranged that the business transacted between them produces to the assessee more than the ordinary profits which might be expected to arise in such eligible business........." . Therefore, it would necessarily mean that the 'arrangement' referred to is an arrangement of the course of business which produces to the assessee more than the ordinary profits with the intent of abusing the tax concession. Thus, the word "arranged" in the section does not envisage a simple arrangement, but a arrangement of "the course of business trans....
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.... with an intent to abuse the tax concessions granted in section 10A of the Act. Moreover, if one is to understand the import of the expression "so arranged" in section 80-IA(10) of the Act as canvassed by the Ld. CIT-DR, it would mean that for the purposes of fulfillment of the conditions prescribed in section 10A(7) r.w.s. 80-IA(10) of the Act, existence of mere close connection and more than the ordinary profits would suffice. In other words, as per the Revenue, the existence of close connection and high profits would lead to a presumption that there is an "arrangement" within the meaning of section 80- IA(10) of the Act. The aforesaid plea, in our view, not only belies the language of section 80-IA(10) but also the legislative intent which seeks to curtail the abuse of tax concession by manipulation of profits between associated concerns. Therefore, an arrangement which is referred to in section 10A(7) r.w.s. 80-IA(10) of the Act has to be one which is prefaced by an intention to abuse the tax concessions, as per the intendment of the legislature. Therefore, existence of a mere agreement to do business is not enough to fulfill the requirement of section 10A(7) r.w.s. 80....
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....nnection or possibility of an arrangement for earning more than ordinary profits. In this case the profits earned is comparable with the profits earned by other companies in the same industry. Hence there is no case for further verification. The AO has compared the profit of software unit with that of hardware unit. Thus the foundation itself is on wrong premise. There cannot be comparison between an orange and an apple. It is known fact that profitability of software units is always higher than hardware unit. The test whether the appellant has earned more than ordinary profits, in this case, the answer is obvious NO, even as found by the AO. When the profits earned are reasonable and not excessive, there is no reason to sustain the addition Further there is no evidence of existence of any arrangement as contemplated under s. 80-1(9)." 29. Quite clearly, as per the Tribunal the question is not whether the onus is light or heavy but whether the Assessing Officer has discussed objectively the conditions mentioned in the section to disturb the results declared by the appellant. 30. Now, the case of the Assessing Officer is that the profits derived by the assessee fro....
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....nnai Bench of the Tribunal in the case of Visual Graphics Computing Services India (P) Ltd. vs. ACIT, 148 TTJ 621 (Chennai), wherein following discussion is relevant :- "We heard both sides in detail and considered the issue. As far as the present case is concerned, the Transfer Pricing Officer has made a categorical finding that the operating profit reported by the assessee is higher than the profit worked out on the basis of arm's length price. The Transfer Pricing Officer, therefore, concluded that no transfer pricing adjustment is called for in the present case. The Assessing Officer has made the reference to the Transfer Pricing Officer under section 92CA. The reference is made for the purpose of computing income arising from an international transaction with regard to the arm's length price as provided in section 92. Therefore, it is to be seen that the scope and extent of reference made by the Assessing Officer to the Transfer Pricing Officer is confined to the singular purpose stated in section 92. Sections 92A, 92B, 92C, 92CB, 92D, 92E and section 92F are all precisely defining and facilitating provisions ultimately for the purpose of computing th....
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.... Tribunal, Chennai "A" Bench in the case of Tweezerman (India) P. Ltd. v. Addl. CIT [2010] 4 ITR (Trib) 130 (Chennai) (133 TTJ 308) has considered the matter in detail and held that the reduction of eligible profits of an assessee as done by the Assessing Officer by invoking the provisions of section 80-IA(10) read with section 10B(7), in the context of the Transfer Pricing Officer's order is unsustainable. The Tribunal has held that the Assessing Officer was not justified to invoke the provisions of section 80-IA(10) read with section 10B(7) so as to reduce the eligible profits on the basis of the arm's length price computed by the Transfer Pricing Officer without showing how he determined that the assessee had shown more than "ordinary profits". As rightly argued by learned senior counsel the arm's length price is determined on the basis of the most appropriate method. The most appropriate method is chosen either on profit basis method or price basis method. In the latter ease, profits are not at all considered. In that method, profit is only a derivative of prices. When profits itself is not worked out, how is it justified to adopt the arm's length price....