TaxTMI 
TaxTMI 
2023 (1) TMI 1540
X X X X Extracts X X X X
X X X X Extracts X X X X
.... (v) Short grant of interest u/s. 244A of the Act (vi) Initiating penalty u/s. 270A of the Act 3. Shri Nitesh Joshi appearing on behalf of the assessee submits that the assessee company is based in Singapore and hence, is a tax resident of Singapore. The assessee is engaged in the business of promotion, development, operation, marketing and maintenance of Computerised Reservation System (CRS). The primary business of the assessee is to facilitate airline reservation for and on behalf of participating airlines. The participating airlines provide necessary information which is displayed to the travel agents. The travel agents arrange booking of airline tickets on behalf of their customers using CRS. The assessee receives its fee from airlines whose tickets are booked through CRS. The assessee sub-licences the right to market CRS to a marketing company in each of the Asia Pacific countries known as National Marketing Company (NMC). In India the assessee has NMC - Sabre Travel Network (India) Pvt. Ltd. The airlines pay the assessee booking fee for each booking made by the agents. The NMC is paid commission /marketing service fee by the assessee for each booking made through....
X X X X Extracts X X X X
X X X X Extracts X X X X
.... for assessee submits that it is a settled principle that reimbursement of expenses cannot be regarded as income and hence, not liable to tax. However, this issue was decided against the assessee by the Tribunal for the first time in assessment year 2005-06 and thereafter the Tribunal has consistently following the same view. The Ld. Counsel for the assessee submits that in appeal for assessment year 2017 18 (supra), the Tribunal has held 10% of reimbursement as income of the assessee. 4.6. In respect of ground No.5, the Ld. Counsel for the assessee submits that TDS as per Form -26AS is Rs. 9,27,61,127/-. Thereafter, Form 26AS statement was revised and additional TDS of Rs. 2,25,645/- remained to be claimed. The assessee had received refund of tax for the preceding assessment years and assessee had also received interest refund. The Assessing Officer deducted the tax at source on said interest income. The total TDS credit available to the assessee is Rs.10,16,74,847/-. As against the said amount the Assessing Officer has granted TDS of Rs. 9,25,35,482/-. Thus, the balance TDS of Rs.91,39,365/- is yet to be granted. The Ld. Counsel for the assessee referred to reconciliation stat....
X X X X Extracts X X X X
X X X X Extracts X X X X
.... circumstances of the case, as agreed by both the parties. Therefore, we, respectfully following the decisions of the co-ordinate benches in assessee's own case for assessment years 1999-2000 and the orders of the subsequent assessment years, we also hold that there is no infirmity in the order of the learned assessing officer in holding that assessee has permanent establishment in India and, therefore, income of the assessee is chargeable to tax in India. It further held that assessee has also a business connection in India in terms of the provisions of the Income-tax Act. Accordingly, ground 2 of the appeal is dismissed" For parity of reasons ground No.2 of the appeal is dismissed. 8. In ground No.3 of appeal the assessee has assailed income attribution to PE. We find that in assessment year 2017-18 identical issue was considered by the Tribunal. Once it was held that assessee has PE in India, the consequent to it is attribution of income. The Co-ordinate Bench decided the issue as under: "13 Ground 3 is with respect to the income attributable to the permanent establishment. This issue is first decided in assessment year 1999-2000. Subsequently, the co-ordinate ben....
X X X X Extracts X X X X
X X X X Extracts X X X X
....king of profit and loss account. The same is reproduced herein below: Estimated profit and loss account working Particulars Amount(Rs.) Particulars Amounts(Rs.) Amounts paid to STN Marketing services fees 1,006,295,387 15% of the Gross Receipts - attributable to India (i.e.15% of Rs. 1,49,74,51,973 10% of reimbursement of expenses Treated as income (i.e. 10% of Rs.5,00,007) Loss 224,617,796 50,001 781,627,590 The Assessing Officer may consider the estimated computation given by the assessee while giving effect to ground No.3 of appeal. Thus, ground No.3 of appeal is allowed in the terms aforesaid. 9. In ground No.4 of appeal the assessee has assailed reimbursement of expenses held to be part of business income. Though the contention of the assessee is that reimbursement of expenditure cannot be regarded as income, however, we find that the Co-ordinate Bench in assessment year 2017-18 has decided this issue holding as under: "14 With respect to ground 4 where 10% of the reimbursement of expenditure held to be the income of the assessee amounting to Rs. 1,26,355/-. Brief facts of the case was that the assessee ....