TaxTMI 
TaxTMI 
2021 (6) TMI 59
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....ssions and perused the material on record. We find that the assessee is required to give a rebate/discount to the retailers based on the volume/units of sales to garment suppliers achieved by the Braitrim group. Subsequently, the proportionate share of rebate/discount is recovered by the assessee from its group companies, including BIPL, based on the relative sales of those group companies to the respective retailers. The assessee has, accordingly entered into a reimbursement agreement with BIPL, whereby BIPL has acknowledged its obligation to reimburse its proportionate share of the discount/rebate to the assessee based on sale volumes/units achieved by it. As per the Cost Reimbursement Agreement (CRA), such reimbursements are depicted as 'Administration charges' by BIPL in its books of account. 14. We find it relevant to refer to the following clauses of the Cost Reimbursement Agreement (CRA) in order to appreciate the nature and characterisation of the amount of reimbursements:- i) that the title to the agreement is described as 'Cost Reimbursement Agreement'; ii) that the preamble to the agreement mentions the fact of payment of administration charges by t....
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....ions of the taxpayer and objections of the taxpayer. The main issue here is that the assessee has paid to its AEs an amount of Rs. 1,87,30,339 slating that these charges are paid as administration charges. However, as accepted by the taxpayer, these expenses are nothing but reimbursement of expenses incurred by the AE for the discounts to be passed on to the retailers by Braitrim UK. After considering the arguments of the assessee it can be inferred that Braitrim UK negotiates globally with various garment retailers to use the hangers manufactured by Braitrim group companies all over the world. As part of these arrangements/agreements Braitrim UK agreed to pass on the discount at the rate 1% of sale of hangers by Braitrim group of companies to the retailers. As rightly stated by the assessee because of this arrangement the taxpayer is getting business without much effort on advertisement and marketing as evidenced by no expenses on marketing or advertisement debited in the profit and loss account for the FY 2006-07. The Braitrim group companies supply the hangers to the garment manufacturers, which in turn supply to the ultimate retailers in the form of pre-hanged clothes. The asse....
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.... responsibility of such rebates in respect of India sales, and thus the payment of such reimbursements. Admittedly, the liability is definite and crystallised in the books of BIPL, and it merely represents normal discount. Thus, we are inclined to uphold the grievance of the assessee that the payments qualify as a pure reimbursement of expenses and accordingly, not taxable in India. The reimbursements received by the assessee are in respect of specific and actual expenses incurred by the assessee and do not involve any mark-up and the assessee has furnished sufficient evidence to demonstrate the incurrence of expenses. There is thus no good reason to make any addition to income in respect of these reimbursements of expenses. The action of the Assessing Officer, as the learned counsel rightly contends, is on pure surmises and conjectures. 19. Here, we would also like to refer to the judgment in the case of AP Moller (supra). Facts of that case were that the assessee was a foreign company engaged in shipping business and was a tax resident of Denmark; that it had agents working for it, who booked cargo and acted as clearing agents for the assessee; and, that in order to help all it....
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....treated as fees for technical services. The payments were in the nature of reimbursement of cost whereby the three agents paid their proportionate share of the expenses incurred on these said systems and for maintaining those systems. Neither the Assessing Officer nor the Commissioner (Appeals) had stated that there was any profit element embedded in the payments received by the assessee from its agents in India. Once the character of the payment was in the nature of reimbursement of the expenses, it could not be income chargeable to tax. Moreover, freight income generated by the assessee in the assessment years in question was accepted as not chargeable to tax as it arose from the operation of ships in international waters in terms of article 9 of the DTAA. Once that was accepted and it was also found that the Maersk net system was an integral part of the shipping business which was allowed to be used by the agents of the assessee as well in order to enable them to discharge their role more effectively as agents, and the business could not be conducted without it, it could not be treated as any technical services provided to the agents." 20. Quite clearly, payments by way of rei....